The Second Synthesis
by La Vik
Summary: In the age of rebuilding after what has been deemed the Great Collapse - the complete obliteration of technology as the world knew it - the daughter of Agent Donald Buchanan discovers a long-kept secret in a garden enclosed by a Faraday cage. Will this secret put her on a path to greatness, or to destruction?
1. Chapter 1

Gwen Buchanan had been two years old in the Great Collapse, when the technology that had taken decades to build was suddenly dismantled to stop a movement called _Transcendence_, and in the twenty-one years since then, the world was in a constant flurry to rebuild the data that had been lost in the collapse. Gwen's father, Donald, had been instrumental in the Great Collapse and had since been decorated many times as a hero for his actions.

Still, in diligent efforts to prevent the resurgence of such turmoil - though what the turmoil truly was, Gwen didn't quite understand - the major world governing bodies created a conglomerate governing board called the Gatekeepers, which prevented the information that was allowed to be made available on a worldwide level. Any new information and data recatalogued to be uploaded and stored was first approved by the Gatekeepers before it could be hosted.

At this point, the rebuilding and the technological resurgence had taken off with a boom, though the issue of accessing these restored technologies was another matter entirely. It was too powerful for layfolk, the Gatekeepers concluded. Their brush with Transcendence had taught them a lesson. So, the capabilities were great - even greater than before, those who still recalled would say - but limited only to a few.

Gwen, as it turned out, had been fascinated by technology from a very young age. Even in the early days of rebuilding, when thoughts of free information and free knowledge for the world seemed little more than a fairytale, it was a fairytale the Gwen Buchanan believed with every fiber of her being. So ardent was her interest that when she became old enough and educated enough, she begged her father, whose connections were vast and infallible, to help her get in to work for the Gatekeepers. Donald Buchanan had been named Chairman of the Gatekeepers (after the position was refused by Joseph Tagger), and, unable to resist the fluttering brown eyes of his beloved only child, the only souvenir that remained of his wife who had since passed from illness, he obliged.

His permission, however, did not come with absolute trust. Despite her constant pleas to be involved in something more exciting, he agreed only to place his daughter in the Biological Studies Division - the tamest division in the organization. Gwen grew bored quickly of her job, even if it allowed her the ability to travel and explore. Her occupation consisted solely of taking samples of plants, of animals, of algae and fungi - whatever living specimens she came across, and running the samples through the device her father had given her for her work - the Portable Specimen Identifier, or Psi. It was, arguably, her best friend - it was a folding apparatus, almost like a tiny laptop computer, with a display screen on one side and a scanning screening on the other. Upon collection, she dropped the specimen on the scanning screen and allowed it to run identification. Within seconds a summary of the specimen she collected would be displayed, and the information would be catalogued on the data card of the device.

Gwen had a _real_ best friend, of course, by the name of Bryce Waters. Bryce's father, too, had been instrumental in the Great Collapse, but had always been hesitant to acknowledge his role. She and Bryce had grown up together, and he had to an extent ridden on her coattails to work for the Gatekeepers, much to his father's chagrin.

Max Waters, however, found Gwen incredibly charming - she was a kind, curious girl who was fast to become enthused and slow to lose interest, so while his stories of the days of free technology, of free information for all before the Great Collapse were all but lost on his son, Gwen Buchanan never tired of listening. It had been a lapse in judgment - he would one day chalk it up to his old age - when he allowed Max and Gwen to take their Psis into the garden of an old friend.

"You'll come across all kinds of plants and fungi and algae there - they'll be mostly dead, but the genetic material will be good enough to get on with," he supplied.

Gwen had been immeasurably pleased - though Mr. Waters said little about his old friends, she knew that they were a married couple, and that the wife was an enthusiastic environmentalist, which meant there would be plenty to find. She ranted about the wonders of cross-pollination and hybridization and Punnett squares to Bryce the entire way, and being her best friend of over ten years, he humored her.

"This is a Faraday cage," she said, her fascination clear in her voice as they walked into the garden that was surrounded by some sort of fence. "I read about them - they were used before the Collapse to block out signals, when people used to be able to transmit them freely."

"These freaks must have been _paranoid_, then," Bryce chuckled, glancing around at the mostly dead plant life - they were surrounded by withered brown plants, but also weeds that had started to overgrow the area. "This place is a little… creepy, don't you think?"

"It's very... Little Shop of Horrors. I kind of like it," Gwen laughed, wandering around still visibly enthralled. She reached over and parted what felt like a curtain of overgrown lemongrass, and paused in surprise when she noticed something bright and yellow peering through. "Look, Bryce! Sunflowers!"

"You don't need to catalogue sunflowers, Gwen, everyone knows what they are -"

"But - these are _tiny_! Sunflowers are supposed to be big, like they're growing on cornstalks. My mom used to grow them!" she said matter of factly, paying no heed when her best friend simply rolled his eyes at her. "It couldn't hurt," she harrumphed, pulling out her Psi and removing the stylus embedded in the side so she could swab some of the pollen and dew from the center of the flower. "I saw a table inside, I'm going to bring this over there."

"Have fun!" he laughed as he pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. Bryce, as it turned out, held a record for cataloguing the most species of fungi and insects, because he found amusement in digging around in the dirt, moreso than fiddling around with plants and animals. Gwen chortled and rolled her eyes - no matter how old they got, she knew that boys would be boys. She took her sample and hurried inside the back door of the old house, putting the Psi down on a table and swabbing it across the scanning screen.

"_Analyze_," she spoke, enunciating clearly so that the voice recognition system on the device would pick up the command. Immediately, the screen lit up and read "Specimen 001", and she stood back a little to allow it to work. Today, however, it seemed to be running slowly, as the status bar ticked away almost imperceptibly. This was odd, she mused. She had just swapped in a new memory card for today, so it was impossible for it to be full already. She frowned a little and reached out to pick up the Psi with every intention of restarting it and processing the sample all over. Right as she was about to touch the device, however, the status bar shot to completion. She withdrew her hand and expected to see a photograph of a flower like the one she had collected the sample from, complete with a short write-up of the species' characteristics as she always saw when she ran a sample.

Instead, she saw the face of a _man_ - and while it was only ever so slight, he was moving. And, admittedly, he was handsome, with dark hair and deep brown eyes. It was the face of a man that, though Gwen did not know it, Mr. Waters would surely recognize, though the man would have looked a good deal older when Max Waters had last seen him.

Gwen was still in shock that this had appeared at _all_. The pictures she saw never moved, and considering the samples she took, the were never human. But this one made small movements - small flares of the nostrils like he was breathing, small movements of the corners of the mouth. They were miniscule, easy to miss, but Gwen was never one to overlook details. She saw each tiny movement.

"Hello?" Gwen said hesitantly. "Can you hear me?"

The face on the screen of the device did not shift in expression - but she saw it _blink_. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Bryce wasn't close by, and she spoke again. "Hello?" she repeated. "My name is Gwen Buchanan. Can you hear me?"

"Yes. I can hear you, Gwen Buchanan," the face on the screen replied, and Gwen jumped, only just managing not to drop the device in her hands. The voice was flat, almost robotic, but with a sort of inflection to it that she was almost positive could not be anything less than human. "My name is Will Caster."


	2. Chapter 2

"The Collapse was more than twenty years ago - I really don't remember much of _anything_."

Gwen had, for whatever reason, tucked her Psi away into her back and brought this _Will Caster_, whoever he was, home with her without uttering a word about it to Bryce Waters at the end of the day. Home alone because her father was spending a long day at work as usual, she found herself engaging in a conversation with Will. A conversation with a _machine_. It seemed absurd and unheard of, and yet… she was doing it.

As many who grew up incredibly overprotected would attest, Gwen had spent most of her youth as a very lonely child - Bryce Waters was one of the few of whom her father wasn't wary, and as such, she was hardly well-attached to anyone else who didn't pass her father's screening first. Even now, when she had passed twenty years of age, it was difficult for her to even think of leaving the nest. Her mother had died years ago, and ever since then, and she couldn't bear the thought of her father being alone.

This new _friend_, even if she was unsure of whether or not he was even real, was a welcome escape. But he had so many questions - about the Great Collapse, about the Gatekeepers. And for once, Gwen felt really knowledgeable about something, like she was truly contributing. Not that she didn't consider her work important - it was important in the same way that the work of every ant in a colony or every bee in a hive was important. But no girl ever dreamed of being just another ant in a colony. When she answered Will Caster's questions, it was as if _she_ was the sole source of information, as if she actually possessed worthwhile answers that he couldn't seek out from anyone else.

"You are part of the rebuilding efforts?" Will asked.

"I'm… trying to be, anyway," Gwen replied."My father doesn't want me all that involved in things. He says I'm too young to really know where my _boundaries_ are, and that not knowing your boundaries is the most dangerous thing." There was a small amount of derision in her voice, but recited the reasoning smoothly enough, having heard it countless times. "That's why he makes sure I _stay _in the Biological Studies Division. He thinks I don't know what they call the BSD at headquarters - the Big Stinking Deal," she added with a roll of her eyes.

"Their ridicule is misplaced," Will said. "The biological sciences are no small undertaking. All life - all human life - comes down to biology."

"All _I_ get to do is catalog bugs and flowers," she corrected before she paused - she felt the impulse to _say_ something, and weighed the harm in it. There surely could be none, she convinced herself. She was talking to a _machine_, after all. "I just don't feel like I'm doing anything for anyone," she admitted aloud for the first time, other than the times she vented her frustrations to Bryce.

"_Gwen_?" - She flinched when there was an unexpected knock on her door - she looked at the time and realized she had been answering Will's questions for at least two hours now, and that her father must have arrived home without her realizing it. "Gwenny, are you talking to someone in there?"

"On the phone, dad," she answered calmly as he peeked in the door, just as she was able to flip the Psi closed and indeed, pretend to be on the phone. Agent - _Chairman_ Buchanan looked inside and smiled at his daughter. "I lost one of my data cards today, I was just calling to ask Bryce if I left it at their house."

"Don't worry, honey, it happens all the time," he chuckled, shaking his head dismissively. "They have tons of them. They cost _pennies_ - tell Bryce I said hello. He hasn't been over for dinner in a while."

"Yes, daddy."

Gwen smiled as her father looked at her with extreme fondness one more time before nodding and exiting, closing the door behind him. She listened as his footsteps walked away down the hallway of their two story home - a house that was honestly way too large for just the two of them - before she opened the Psi and was again met with the face of Will Caster.

"That was your father, Donald Buchanan," he said - a statement, not a question. Gwen nodded in response, and, as though confirmation of this fact were enough, he continued with their previous conversation. "Tell me more about the Gatekeepers."

"They - I mean, _we…_" Gwen began. It was strange for her to think of herself as _part_ of the Gatekeepers, when she was only barely even on the outskirts of the organization, but she was, indeed, still a part of it, even if only in name. "We make sure that the things that went wrong before the Great Collapse don't happen again - the corrupted, unreliable files, the security failures. We make sure the material accessible to public is safe. Non-inflammatory," she recited, but her expression fell visibly as she provided this explanation.

"You appear displeased," Will stated. "You… are not happy with what you are doing."

"It's not that I'm not _happy_," she reneged quickly. "It's just… Mr. Waters talks to me all the time about what things were like _before_. He always talks about how there was a time that information was supposed to be free for everyone, that there was a free exchange with this _limitless_ potential."

"And did Mr. Waters tell you why this time ended?"

"Because people thought it was _dangerous_, that it scared people to believe that machines could do something that people couldn't, that access to all of that was more than anyone should be able to have," Gwen recited, but it was evident in her voice that she didn't _mean_ any of these things. "But - it doesn't make sense, does it? Aren't the Gatekeepers doing the same thing, but just… keeping all of it for themselves?"

"There is… an inherent contradiction in the trajectory of events since the Collapse as you have told them to me, yes."

"So it _isn't_ just me, then," Gwen huffed, laying back against her headboard and sighing, shaking her head. However, as strongly as she felt that something was missing, that she was contributing to an effort she wasn't sure that she agreed with, she hated when her thoughts drifted in this direction. Her father believed so strongly that what they were doing was right - and what they were doing had put a roof over her head and food on their table for her entire life. What place did she have questioning it?

And yet, the idea always returned - if the stories about the Great Collapse were true, if free, boundless technology and information were too powerful to be wielded in its entirety, then why were they working so hard to rebuild it?

"It's late," Gwen said in a quiet but abrupt voice. "I need to work tomorrow…"

She glanced at the screen and for a moment, wondered if she should expect a reaction from Will, but none came. "Good night, Will," she said impulsively.

"Good night, Gwen."

* * *

The next morning, Gwen didn't immediately reboot the Psi - she had overslept a little and had barely rolled out of bed when her alarm went off. She was standing in front of her vanity mirror and brushing her hair, attempting to style it a little differently than usual on impulse, when she heard a voice outside her window in the street. She moved over and saw that Bryce had already pulled up - they almost always carpooled together, and he was always impeccably on time.

"You're gonna be late - _we're_ gonna be late!" he called out jokingly once she peered out the window, and she laughed, rolling her eyes slightly.

"Five minutes!" she called out. "I promise!"

Her five minutes, as it turned out, was more like fifteen, and Gwen rushed downstairs, kissed her father goodbye as he sat reading the paper - he never came in early in the morning. Finally making it out to the car, she hopped into the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt. Bryce glanced at her hair, curled back and pinned away from her face delicately, and he realized she had also put on lipstick - he rolled his eyes.

"Are you serious? You don't need to do _all this_ just to be pretty," he laughed, garnering a raise of Gwen's eyebrow for the fact that it sounded dangerously like a compliment. "We're going to be written up for your new little hairdo."

"We're just inputting data today," Gwen answered dismissively. "It's not like we're missing anything exciting."

And she was, for the most part, correct. It was a tedious day at the beginning, as they took the data cards on which they had catalogued their specimens and placed them into the lab computers for uploading - though one data card in particular from Gwen's set remained very intentionally placed into the port of her Psi, which was resting in her bag. The day consisted mostly of checking for duplicate entries, ascribing them the proper nomenclature, and numbering them appropriately to be approved for upload. After half a day of this, however, a man in a very expensive-looking suit and a paisley tie with a bald head and a reddish face appeared at Gwen's desk, smiling at her expectantly.

"Good afternoon, Director Hadley," she said, standing and reaching her hand to shake his. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing at all," he said with a jovial smile. Hadley was the director of their division, and rarely ventured down into the main offices, preferring to remain in the cushy downstairs offices where the higher ups were located. "Your entries for today just came through and I noticed you were able to discern a few very interesting hybrids. It takes a good eye."

"Well, thank you, sir."

"You've made a habit of doing _excellent _work, Miss Buchanan," Hadley said. "Do you have a moment to walk with me?"

"Of course, sir," she nodded politely, coming around her desk and following him out to the foyer, a glass-walled veranda that overlooked an indoor garden. He walked with her to the staff elevator and pulled his keycard from a chain in his pocket, scanning it on a sensor before pressing the button for the third sub-basement - the restricted zone. As they entered, they passed another man who had to be only a few years older than Gwen whom she had met only at company functions.

"Miss Buchanan, I believe you're acquainted with Milford Duggan," Director Hadley said, briefly gesturing for the man to stop and talk a while. He gave Gwen a toothy grin as he obliged. "Mr. Duggan is one of our associate scientists in our… special projects," he nodded.

"Lovely to see you again, Gwen," Duggan continued to smile - he had one of those smiles, Gwen thought, that was disconcerting because you couldn't tell what was going on behind the eyes. However, she smiled back and reached out to shake his hand, and he squeezed hers for about a second too long. "I hope to work with you soon."

Director Hadley, however, seemed unperturbed by the exchange and continued bringing her deeper into the heart of the facility. Gwen glanced around in slight awe and hardly noticed that Director Hadley had stopped in front of a brushed glass door with a sign in block letters.

"Project… Generativity?" Gwen read, her forehead wrinkling slightly. Director Hadley smiled and chuckled slightly at her confusion. "Sir, I don't -"

"The Generativity Project is the crowning glory of the Biological Sciences Division - it's mostly an effort towards reforestation, endangered species repopulation, the like," he nodded, using his key card to open the door again. "We're exploring how to translate the data on catalogued species into real, biological matter. I'd like you to work with us."

Hadley had slipped in the last statement so casually that Gwen had almost missed it. When she finally processed it after a few seconds of silence, still walking behind Hadley as he showed her the short hallway lined with locked doors, she blinked and cleared her throat.

"I don't know how my father would feel about that," she explained honestly. "He doesn't think I'm - _mature_ enough to be so involved."

"Chairman Buchanan is our most respected executive," Hadley said with a nod, "But he doesn't have absolute veto power over who is hired and who isn't, especially not in our _special_ projects. We can't allow our reverence for the old allow us to lose the opportunity to acquire new talent."

He looked back over his shoulder at Gwen and raised his eyebrows, to which she responded by averting her gaze briefly. He nodded and reached out, clapping a hand onto her shoulder. "Think on it, and give me an answer over lunch tomorrow."

Gwen felt particularly conflicted over this offer that she found it to be all she could talk about on the drive home with Bryce - and while he was the best friend she could ask for without a doubt, he was certainly no help. _Do what makes you happy_, he said as he dropped her off at home.

Even worse, Gwen came home to an empty house as her father was still attending to work at the Gatekeepers Headquarters - there was no one else to talk to about this decision, unless…

Gwen reached into her bag and pulled out the Psi, running upstairs to her room and shutting the door behind her as she booted it up again. "Will?" she asked hesitantly as the screen flickered to life. As expected, Will Caster's face appeared, but instead of a greeting, he spoke with a very blunt statement.

"It would be in your best interest to accept this offer."

Gwen blinked, and she was fairly certain her mouth had hung open for a few seconds before she was able to respond. "How did you -"

"The microphone apparatus on this device is fully functioning."

"It was turned _off_."

To this, Will did not respond, and a flash of apprehension appeared on Gwen's face before fading away. She repeated the statement, but again, he gave no comment - no acknowledgment that he had heard it at all. Instead, he made another statement which caught her off guard yet again. "Bryce Waters possesses romantic intentions towards you."

"That's _crazy_."

"An analysis of his speech and behavior patterns suggests that it is not," Will replied simply. "Tell me more about him."

"Well," Gwen hesitated, wondering how best to describe her best friend."He came to live with his father when he was about four years old - his mother died. A girl that his father saw for a while when they met at a conference. His father is Max Waters, he's a scientist too."

"Is he a Gatekeeper?"

"No," Gwen answered. "He does his own research. Independently, from home."

"It's good to hear that," Will said, and Gwen realized that now, the face on the screen actually nodded. And - did he _smile_? She simply mirrored the expression, nodding as well.

Meanwhile, at the Waters household, Bryce had spent the better part of half an hour explaining to his father how the day had gone - how Gwen had gone to extra trouble to get ready in the morning, and how she had asked him what he thought of the promotion offer she had received from Director Hadley.

It had turned out, Will had been correct about at least one thing - Bryce Waters had long harbored feelings for his best friend, and after today he felt reasonably convinced that it was time to at least consider making a move.

Max Waters chuckled and shook his head at his son's nervous energy - the way he paced and wrung his hands when he talked about Gwen. He clucked his tongue and wagged his index finger in his son's direction. "I always had a feeling you'd end up together," he said knowingly. "She's smart, she's kind… she reminds me a great deal of an old friend of mine. Her name was Evelyn."

"Gwen's… _perfect_," Bryce shrugged, sinking into an armchair next to the sofa, where his father was sitting and reading. Max laughed again and shook his head.

"Nobody's perfect," he said. "Everyone has their weaknesses, but with the right person, the weaknesses just make you love them a little more."

"If she takes this job in Project Generativity - I'm worried she'll meet someone else," Max admitted, scratching the back of his neck. "That's the _big leagues_. If I don't act now -"

"So you think she's going to accept?" Max interrupted. Bryce looked at his father and saw that his expression had suddenly changed to one of extreme interest - not in _him_, but genuinely in what he had to say about Gwen.

"She says she's not sure - there's an aptitude test," he shrugged. "She says she'd never pass."

"She'd pass with flying colors," Max replied with a resolute nod. He stood up and moved in front of his son, kneeling so that he was looking him directly in the face. "If you really care about her, you'll encourage her. It'll be good for her."

Bryce wanted to ask why his father cared so much about whether or not her ended up with Gwen, when he took such an interest in the girl, but before he could even pluck up the determination to ask, he heard the phone ring. He scurried over and picked it up - Max immediately knew who it was on the other line when he saw the grin spread across his son's face.

"Hey, Gwen - dinner? Sure!" he said. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be by in an hour."

Max Waters clucked his tongue and looked at his son with a knowing expression when he hung up the phone and began practically buzzing around the room. He had always had a feeling his son would fall for Gwen Buchanan - the two had been inseparable since they were children, because Gwen drew others to her like moths to a flame, and her ambition, her dreams had rubbed off on Bryce. She gave Bryce direction, ambition of his own. Max Waters could only hope that Gwen would be good for him - and that she'd fall for him too.

* * *

"Will," Gwen said, coming back into her room after changing into her pajamas - her Psi was still running and sitting on her bedside table. Bryce had just left a short while ago after having had dinner with her - she hated eating dinner alone, and on the nights that her father failed to come home in time, she called him to keep her company. Today, their dinner conversation had been particularly interesting, since earlier in the day Bryce had been so noncommittal about the offer to join Project Generativity, and now all of a sudden, he was adamant that she should take the opportunity. He'd even gotten her immediately on the phone with Director Hadley, who had the tendency to spend late nights in the office, and had acted as her cheering section, her moral support when she let him know that she was interested after all.

Now that he had departed to go home, the house was yet again empty, she realized that she had done all this without consulting her father. If she didn't distract herself somehow, she would have time to feel guilty. Will Caster was the only such distraction to be found. She sat down on her bed and looked at the screen with her hands clasped in her lap. "Are you - were you ever a person?" she asked, looking intently at his face.

"I was."

"What happened?"

"I do not recall."

The answer was less than what she had expected, but she didn't feel compelled to reject it. If Will Caster was only a machine, then he lacked the mind and motivation to lie; he truly could not recall. If he was human, then he was lying to cover up something he did not want to talk about. Either way, it was an answer she could accept. "I'm taking the aptitude exam in the morning," she said suddenly, though she wasn't sure why she felt compelled to change the subject. "For Project Generativity."

"Then you must be asleep within the hour for optimum performance," WIll answered simply. For some reason, this brought a smile to Gwen's face - it sounded almost like _concern_, even if she wasn't entirely sure that he would be capable of expressing such a thing, if he was capable of feeling it at all.

"You're right," she nodded, swinging her legs up onto her bed and pulling the covers up over herself. She reached over to shut down her Psi, but first added, "Good night, Will."

"Good night, Gwen."


	3. Chapter 3

_A Month Later…_

"Well, hello there, Gwenny - it's been a while!"

Gwen laughed as she was welcomed warmly into the Waters home by Mr. Waters, who reached out and hugged her warmly - like he was welcoming his own daughter. Bryce reached out and patted a hand gently on her shoulder.

"She's been busy - too many new friends down in Generativity," he laughed, which caused Gwen to turn and look at him with a skeptical expression.

"_New friends_," she scoffed pointedly, rolling her eyes. She'd hardly had time to socialize in her first month of the project - if she had craved the feeling of being more productive, more contributory, her wish had been granted as her days had now gone from cataloguing specimens day in and day out to long days in the lab conducting her own independent research. Her work kept her so busy, in fact, that the only 'new friend' she could have cited was one that she was not prepared to tell them about.

"It's - it's amazing, but it gets tiring," she admitted as she sat down at the dinner table with Bryce and Mr. Waters. "They're really adamant about not digitizing anything we do, so we record everything by hand in these journals they issue to us - my wrist is killing me, but it's pretty amazing, having free reign to work on what I want," she said. Despite the fact that her face was clearly exhausted, both Bryce and his father couldn't help but smile at the fact that she seemed to genuinely enjoy what she did.

"What have you been working on?" Mr. Waters asked between bites of salad - his doctor had advised him that it was better for his heart to stray from the usual foods he liked, so Gwen and Bryce shared a glance and a poorly concealed chuckle when the older man frowned in disgust at the fact that he needed to change his diet.

"Right now, I'm - I'm trying something new with lysogenic viral reproduction. It's _really_ interesting, and I think I might be onto something," Gwen said brightly - Mr. Waters gave a strange smile that seemed laced with something like sadness for a moment, and Bryce remembered the statement he had made before, that Gwen reminded him of an old friend. "I haven't been able to do much with it yet, of course, it's all just test samples and lab rats, but I think it could go somewhere."

Bryce had to admit, he rather enjoyed when Gwen went off this way about her work - she had never been this enthusiastic about _cataloguing_. Actually, he was fairly sure that no one had ever been too enthusiastic about cataloguing. Ever since they were in school, Gwen had been fascinated by biology, and before Generativity, had been growing incredibly jaded by it. In the past month, she simply seemed alive again.

"How's your father doing?" Mr. Waters asked. Gwen inexplicably placed her fork down and her smile became forced as she cleared her throat and nodded.

"He's - he's doing alright," she began. "He's not too pleased with the promotion, and we've had a rough time. Our work schedules have sort of panned out so we could avoid each other, but… it'll blow over. I'm sure it will."

Mr. Waters didn't press the issue any further, which Gwen was endlessly grateful for - her relationship with her father had taken an interesting turn indeed when she arrived to give him the news that she had already taken the aptitude test for Project Generativity a month ago. He had encouraged her to back out, and for the first time in her life, she outright refused. Since then, their connection had been strained at best. It had gotten to the point that she was so lonely for the presence of a father figure, Mr. Waters's interest in her work was more than welcome.

But she was sure her father would come around eventually. He had to.

* * *

"This is the most stable strain so far - I knew epithelial stem cells were the way to go."

Gwen pulled her goggles up and drew a sample of a clear fluid in a test tube into a disposable pipette for transfer onto a new slide, and proceeded to glance at it under the microscope. "The markers from the retrovirus are _clearly_ taking hold in these, and it's working much faster," she added, but she wasn't talking to anyone actually _in_ the room. An outsider would have reasonably thought she was talking to herself as many scientists often do, until a name slipped its way into her conversation.

"What do you think, Will?"

She glanced up at the screen on her Psi, where Will Caster was watching her work. This, unbeknownst to anyone, was one of the reasons she was thankful to have her own lab, because for the past month, she had been taking advice from Will on the new direction to take her research. She learned that while the life sciences had certainly not been his specialty when he was alive, he had interesting ideas, and a surprising amount of awareness. It had been a combined idea of theirs - though admittedly with more encouragement from Will - to infuse the retrovirus with a sample from his own nanoparticles, to see if they could, by doing so, merge his genetic material with that of another living set of cells. It had taken several trials to do it correctly, to successfully isolate the samples from the garden and incorporate them into viral genetic material, but somehow, Gwen had done it - she had hardly slept in the process and was a good deal skinnier because of it, but she had done it nonetheless. She had managed to generate nearly fully human cells with viral properties - an enzyme called reverse transcriptase that had the ability to hijack the workings of living cells and take it on as a host.

Unstoppable was a word he used once or twice to describe the combination of his expertise on technology and Gwen's extensive knowledge in biology.

"I think it needs to be tested."

"That's easier said than done," Gwen replied casually - she had developed a strange sort of ease when speaking to Will, it seemed that there was no difference between the way she spoke with him and the way she spoke with a real person - a live person. "Right now, all I can do is grow these cells in the sucrose solution - and it's working -

"But it's not enough -"

"Well, it has to be for now - and I'm arguing with a _machine. _Good grief," Gwen said, shaking her head in disbelief. There were times, she had to admit, that talking with Will Caster the way she did made her feel a little bit insane, especially when it came to them _disagreeing_. She was no expert - she didn't even know if a machine could be convinced it was wrong. There was no opportunity to say much more when Gwen heard the sound of the outside door - she reflexively swiped her arm across the table and moved a group of beakers across the surface to cover her Psi.

"Don't talk," she managed to say before the door to her lab swung open, and a man entered - Milford Duggan. Gwen took a few steps backward when she noticed the slight stumble in his step. He was _drunk_. He stared at Gwen as he took lumbering, clumsy steps across the small laboratory space towards her.

"Just stay quiet," Duggan said, a toothy, unnerving smile working its way onto her face. "And I promise, it won't hurt - it'll be good for you too -"

And he lurched forward, his hands landing on Gwen's waist as she was frozen in a brief moment of surprise. He groped and grabbed at her blouse beneath her lab coat, untucking it from her slacks and giving both sides a hard yank so that the top buttons came apart, separating from the garment and falling to the floor.

"Duggan, get _off_!" Gwen screamed, giving the man a hard shove, but it only managed to deter him for a moment before he grabbed a hold of her again. "Stop it! Get off of me!" But he didn't comply - he had her pinned against the desk, and his hand was roving up her leg, pulling at the waist of her slacks.

With another cry, Gwen reached out and grabbed the closest item in reach, an empty beaker, and broke it over the side of his head. He let out a near-roar of agony and clutched the now bleeding side of his head, yanking himself away. He wheeled around, but froze when through the gap left by the beaker Gwen had hit him with, he caught sight of her Psi - and Will Caster's face on the screen. He didn't know who the man was, but he knew that this was some kind of a secret. Gwen, in a panic, reached out and picked up a heavy steel extension clamp, giving it a mighty swing so it hit the other side of his head - he collapsed to the ground in a heap, and she dropped the clamp to the ground with a clang.

"Are you hurt?" Will asked, his voice as calm as ever. Gwen nodded, but looked down at Duggan and saw that he was bleeding badly from his head. This looked _bad_. If he died here, there would be hell to pay - she had to be able to at least turn him in, she decided.

"I have an idea," she said in a sudden, breathless voice, hurrying over and picking up the test tube from the rack that contained the solution of the sucrose and the epithelial cells infused with the virus. She scrambled quickly, wordlessly around the room and dug through drawers until she managed to find a large, needleless syringe. Drawing up as much of solution as she could, she crouched down next to Duggan's motionless form and covered the area of the wound on his head with it. Immediately, the bleeding seemed to clot and slow - the reaction was nearly instantaneous.

Now assured that Milford Duggan wasn't going to die from bleeding out of his head, Gwen straightened up and let out a breath as it sank in what had just happened. She ran her trembling hands over her hair, now tousled out of its neat ponytail. Milford Duggan had just drunkenly tried to _rape _her, and she had nearly killed him out of worry not for her own safety, but because he had seen _Will_ and might try to tell. She shook her head, and wordlessly reached out, closing the screen to her Psi and walking out - first, she took Milford Duggan's access badge away, so even if he came to, he wouldn't be able to board the elevator out without anyone's assistance.

It probably wasn't the best time, but nothing tonight seemed to have impeccable timing. She made her way across the sub-basement level to the staff workout facility where there was a small row of showers. Making sure the door was locked behind her, she decided she couldn't function well enough if it still felt like she had _dirt_ all over her - nothing she could see, but nonetheless a feeling of being completely filthy.

Gwen stepped into the shower and let it wash over her hair, her shoulders, her entire body - but she didn't feel any better. She clenched her eyes shut and ran her hands through her hair, fervently scrubbed her skin, and continued doing so over and over for what had to be an hour. She stayed under the water until her skin was wrinkled and pruny, and when she stepped out, she changed into the spare set of clothes she kept in her workout locker. After brushing her wet hair back into a neat ponytail, she glanced at herself in the mirror and felt assured that she look fine - that she had washed away what had just happened, and she could face whatever happened. She would go back and see how Duggan was holding up - and then she would turn him in and make him pay.

When she arrived back at her lab space and opened the door, however, there was no sign of Milford Duggan except for the small smudge of blood on the floor. Gwen froze and stared - he had gotten away. How was she going to explain what happened? It would be dangerous, Gwen realized, if Duggan went to the police first and lied - it would be his words against hers. She would need to get her hands on the security footage, and it would be a long, intense debacle. It was going to ruin everything…

"Hello, Gwen."

She flinched at the sound of another voice coming from behind the large supply cabinet, and she realized it was the voice of Will Caster - but the voice didn't emanate from the Psi, which was still laying closed on the desk. Instead, she looked up and saw a person emerge from the shadow of the cabinet, clad in Milford Duggan's clothes - but the clothes were overlarge on this man, and the face was one Gwen recognized, but only from having seen it on a tiny screen. He was a man who, at least in _appearance_, seemed no older than thirty.

"Will?" she asked in a breathless voice, taking a few steps closer as her entire body felt as though it were shaking. She stammered a few times and let out a few expletives under her breath before finally managing to ask one of the endless questions on her mind. "Is that you? Where is -"

"Milford Duggan has ceased to exist," Will answered - it was jarring now to hear the voice she recognized, but with such human inflection that was new and unfamiliar. She walked over and stared him over, her brow furrowed.

"So I - I brought you back to life," she said, reaching up and covering her mouth with her hands, letting out a slow breath. It was finally sinking in - the virus had worked, and worked more thoroughly than she had even thought possible. In the hour she had spent in the showers, the virus infused with Will's nanoparticles had managed to _completely_ take over the host body. She shook her head in disbelief at what this meant.

"Gwen?" he asked, reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder - she flinched, still completely awestruck that Will Caster was an actual person, a man with a body who was actually able to reach out and touch her. She lowered her hands and stared for a moment, and she realized that he stared at her with questioning, with concern. "I'd like to see this Mr. Waters that you've told me about. Can you take me to him?"


	4. Chapter 4

Max Waters had settled into watching the ten o'clock news on his old television when he heard a knock on the door - he certainly wasn't expecting company for the evening, and had half the mind to ignore it, but got up to check anyway. He was surprised to see a very flustered looking Gwen Buchanan on his front porch, and he opened the door just slightly to greet her, not wanting the young woman to see him so unkempt in his pajamas.

"Gwen, this is a surprise," he said with a chuckle that she usually would have reciprocated, but the wet-haired girl in front of him simply kept her arms wrapped around herself, glancing over her shoulder every few moments. "Bryce is still out - they sent him to investigate a food poisoning outbreak in Monterey, see if he could catalog anything new."

"I came to see you, Mr. Waters," she said shakily, waving her hand to stop his explanation. Glancing backwards again, she made another brief, frenetic gesture with her hand and another figure who had been lurking at the bottom of the porch steps emerged, removing the hood of his jacket as he approached.

Max's eyes widened as a familiar face - though in appearance about fifteen or twenty years younger than he'd been when he'd last seen him - stepped into the faint yellowish glow of the porch light. This, he was sure, was Dr. Will Caster - somehow no older than his early thirties, but unmistakably the same man that he had once called a friend.

"Hello, Max."

"_Will_."

"Oh. You know each other. Great," Gwen said hesitantly. Upon sensing the girl's discomfort growing with every passing second she spent outside, Max gestured for them both to come inside, quickly shutting the door and the blinds behind them. Finally somewhere she felt safe, Gwen sank onto the couch, briefly covering her face with her hands and groaning in exhaustion before looking up at Max. "Mr. Waters, I think I've done something really serious," she said fearfully. "I - I think I killed Milford Duggan."

"You _think_?" Max said, suddenly taking on an almost fatherly tone with the young woman who, in all fairness, had practically grown up with him as much as his own son had. "How can you - is there…" he stammered, completely awestruck. "Is there a _body_?"

"You're looking at it," Gwen replied, glancing over at Will - and it seemed that just looking at him again overwhelmed her, as she let out a heavy sigh and buried her head in her hands again. "I - I panicked. Duggan attacked me and I tried to stop him, but he was bleeding so bad - I was worried he wouldn't be able to get up," she stammered. "The samples I've been working on - I thought maybe it would heal the headwound enough for me to bring him to the police, to turn him in, but instead…"

Gwen stood up and started pacing across the floor, and in the pause in her explanation, Max looked again at Will in utter disbelief. He was in a _real_ body again, a real human body. He wasn't just the production of nanoparticles and digitized memories. He was a human again, and it was all because of Gwen Buchanan, the little girl he had seen grow up alongside his son.

"I didn't think this would happen - it was the first time I've ever tested the strain on an actual person. These things aren't _supposed_ to work the first time," Gwen said frantically. "I am in _so_ much trouble, I don't know what to -"

"Gwen - _Gwen_," Max said abruptly, walking over and planting his hands firmly on the girl's shoulders. "Listen to me. Don't do this - don't do this to yourself now, okay? Something very bad just happened to you, and we can't work anything else out until you're okay," he chided. Gwen nodded, and he brought her up to the guest bedroom - which was, in all honesty, practically her room in their house as they rarely had any other guests. It took only minutes for her to fall asleep, and once he felt assured that the young woman was at least resting as she deserved to, he went downstairs to find Will looking at the photos on the wall.

"You don't have any photos of Evelyn and me."

"They've practically erased you from history, Will," Max said darkly. "I was ordered to destroy any photos of any of us together, all I have left is memories. I'm lucky they let me have _those_. But Jesus Christ," he said, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Is this really happening? I can't believe you're standing in my living room -"

"This is revolutionary."

"This is _inhuman_," Max retorted, shaking his head. This exchange felt so familiar, as did the faint impulse to beat some sense into the man - but it was laced with relief at seeing him again. "Milford Duggan is a man with a wife and kid on the way, did you know that?" Max's voice faltered as he attempted to defend his posturing, his defense of humanity and the value of Duggan's life, but Will quickly countered.

"Milford Duggan was _scum_, and he just tried to sexually assault a young woman you obviously care about like she was your own daughter," Will said. "And it's too late, I can't give Milford Duggan this body back - I didn't take it on purpose, and I can't give it back."

"How long has she been keeping you a secret?" Max asked, his face slightly puckered in displeasure. "She found you in the garden, didn't she?"

"She did. About a month ago," Will nodded. "And you're the _only_ one who could have sent her there. You knew - you knew, didn't you Max? You knew you could bring me back."

"This is _insane_," Max said, unable to contribute much else. "Do you know what this could do to Gwen? To her future? My son is in love with that girl and if anything happens to her, it might _kill_ him."

"Hey, Dad, I just saw Gwen's car out front, is she -"

Max turned and looked at the door as his son walked in, clearly surprised to see someone else in their home this late in the evening. He froze and blinked, but nodded in greeting before glancing to his father for an explanation.

"Gwen is upstairs sleeping - let her rest. Something went wrong at work, and I think she should be the one to tell you about it," Max explained calmly. "This is a friend of mine. Will Caster -"

"Will _Caster_?" Bryce asked, his eyes narrowing in what Max quickly realized was recognition. "Dr. Caster, the one who was responsible for the Great Collapse? Dad, I've _read_ your old papers in your study, I know who he is - why is he so young? Why is he _here_?!"

"I can go," Will nodded calmly. "Max, you know where to find me."

But Will Caster taking his leave from the Waters home did not dissolve the tension that had settled between the father and son.

* * *

Gwen didn't stir until the next morning and even then, she refused outright to tell Bryce about what had happened. She was fine, she insisted. She cited whatever had occurred as some sort of "minor disagreement" in the office, and was adamant in her insistence not to press the issue further. She had breakfast with the Waters men, and she and Bryce each drove to work separately since her car was still parked outside.

They pulled into adjacent parking spaces in the garage area of the Gatekeeper Headquarters, and as they walked together towards the entrance, Bryce gave a sigh.

"You're really not going to talk to me?" he asked, moving so that he was walking backwards in front of her, slowing their pace considerably.

"I've _been_ talking to you all morning."

"That's not what I'm talking about, Gwen."

She appeared as though she was about to provide some sort of retort when unexpectedly, someone exited the building just as they approached, spotted her, and gave her arm a mighty yank. Gwen turned as she stumbled to see a blonde-haired woman sporting a round, pregnant belly - Christie Duggan.

"Where is my husband?!" she cried shrilly, giving Gwen's arm a hard shake and shouting loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the lobby, as well as everyone just entering the building. "Where's Milford?! I know it's you - I know how he _pines_ after you, because you're a young, pretty little thing - I see him staring at you at all the company parties, don't think I don't -"

"I have no idea where your husband is -"

"He didn't come _home_ last night!" Christie shrieked, yanking Gwen's arm again as the younger woman tried to pull away while Bryce looked in horror. In any other case, he would have leapt to his best friend's defense, but how could he defend her against a pregnant woman? "Where is he? I _know_ he must have gone to see you -"

"Yes. Yes, he _did_," Gwen said loudly, her voice now angrily matching Christie's in volume. She didn't _want_ to do this in front of everyone, and she certainly didn't want to do it in front of Bryce, but the confrontation left few alternatives. "Your _husband _came to my lab and tried to rape me last night because he's a drunk _pig_ - I fought him off, and I don't know where he went after that. Are you _satisfied_?!" she hissed. It was mostly true, anyway.

Christie Duggan removed her hand from Gwen's arm as though she'd just been burned, staring at the young woman in horror. "No," she said in disbelief as the numerous bystanders began to chatter in quiet uproar at the revelation. "My husband would never -"

"Oh, he would _never_? Okay," Gwen interrupted, reaching and pulling up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal a set of bruises on her arms that were clearly from being grabbed and relatively fresh in appearance. Christie pulled away from her and gaped in outrage, her shoulders shaking.

"_No_," she said, shaking her head piteously. Her voice was shrill and drawing attention from all onlookers, even while Gwen's bruised arm was still bare for everyone to see. "Milford wouldn't do that. Where did he -"

"My guess is that he ran - _far_ away," Gwen said, taking a step backwards. She felt Bryce wrap an arm around her shoulders, and with one last glance towards Christie, she allowed her friend to lead her away, into the building. Gwen directed her gaze down towards her feet, ill-equipped to receive the stares that followed her now that everyone had heard. Wordlessly, she bolted for the elevator and retreated to her lab to be alone, leaving Bryce completely dumbstruck by the revelation.

He was there to meet her in their usual spot at lunchtime - they always took their lunch a bit late to avoid the crowds in the facility's dining hall - and she arrived like clockwork, her eyes darting around the room rapidly as though more determined than usual to simply avoid everyone. She rested her elbows on the table and groaned miserably as she took a seat across from Bryce.

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?" he asked, sliding a pre-packaged salad across the table to her, nudging her arm with the small plastic tray until she chuckled weakly, reaching out to remove the lid and take a bite.

"I just didn't want to talk about it," she admitted through bites of lettuce. "I thought maybe if I just kept quiet, it would get to a point where I could forget it happened. But that obviously backfired," she said with a weak smile. Bryce reached out and grasped one of her hands, which caused her to flinch - they were close, and had been for most of their lives. She hugged him often, for no apparent reason. They leaned on one another when they sat on the couch watching television. It wasn't that physical contact - Gwen would go so far as to call it affection - was stranger to them. But hand-holding, this strange, comforting gesture coming from him paired with the warmth in his eyes, was completely new and unfamiliar.

"We're gonna find Duggan," he said resolutely, and he was unable to comprehend the look of _fear_ that flashed across his best friend's face. "We'll find him and make him pay for -"

"No - I don't want that. I don't want anyone to look for him," she said almost pleadingly. "I - I protected myself, he didn't get to _do_ anything, and I just want him to stay gone. That's all."

Clearly unsatisfied with Gwen's attitude towards all of that she had been through and what was to be done about it, Bryce shook his head and sighed - whether he liked it or not, it was Gwen's call, and he simply had to resign.

"Fair enough. We'll talk about something else," he laughed weakly, but by the look on his face, he was struggling to find something else to talk about. He sat for a few moments, as though mulling something over very seriously, and Gwen had half the mind to get up and just see him again another time when tensions had died down, to make it easier on both of them. However, he finally managed to clear his throat. "How about we do dinner tonight? At a restaurant. Like - not at the house or anything," he said. Gwen smiled questioningly, raising her eyebrows - had it been that serious of a question to ask his best friend to have dinner out with him?

And then, she remembered what Will Caster had said to her when he was still just a face in the Psi - _Bryce Waters possesses romantic intentions towards you_. She gave a weak laugh and pretended not to have suspected anything. After all, if it had to be someone, there were worse choices than Bryce Waters, weren't there?

"I'm not sure I'm up to it yet today," she admitted honestly, looking down at her salad. "I'm just - I'm a little overwhelmed."

"Oh. Yeah, yeah - definitely. Of course, I have the worst timing -"

"Tomorrow?"

Bryce nearly choked on the sip of water he was taking - he certainly hadn't expected her to actually be looking _forward_ to it. He swiped his shirt sleeve across his mouth to make sure he hadn't splashed all over himself, and she finally managed a real, genuine laugh.

"Tomorrow works," Bryce grinned, shaking his head in slight embarrassment. Gwen shot him another smile before getting up, meaning to go when he suddenly spoke up again. "Hey - Gwen, when you were at the house last night, did you overhear my dad talking to anyone?"

Gwen froze in her tracks and turned back to face him - so his path had already crossed Will's. She blinked and exhaled deeply, considering lying before finally nodding in confirmation. Bryce covered his face briefly with his hands and breathed through pursed lips. "You don't know - _who_ that was?" he asked, shaking his head incredulously, his face a strange mix of worry and doubt. "Gwen, while you were sleeping at our place last night, there was a man there - did you see him?"

"No."

She moved over and sat down across from Bryce again so they could speak with low voices, leaning across the table and staring at him questioningly. He clearly didn't know about her connection to all of this - but he seemed to know something else. He glanced around, a ball of nervous energy, before adding in a near-whisper. "That's Will Caster - he was responsible for the Great Collapse. He used to be dad's… _best friend_."

And Gwen froze, her eyes wide with shock. She could tell right away that the pair had recognized each other, but she didn't bother to wonder how. But Bryce knew - Bryce knew more than she did, and he was perhaps the only one who could tell her. He was the only one who could make all of this make at least a little more sense. She attempted to return her expression to one of calm.

"...on second thought," she said, nodding gently. "Let's do that dinner tonight."

* * *

_A/N's_

_I wasn't planning on writing many author's notes in this story, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone for following, favoriting, and reviewing. I especially want to say thank you to **Amber Entropy **for her constructive feedback that the science jargon was a little heavy in the last chapter. I might go back and make an author's note somewhere with an explanation/glossary. I definitely felt like it was a lot as well, but I was also trying to come up with a believable way for someone to take over another person's body - I guess I got lost in the details a little bit! The rest of the story shouldn't require too much jargon, so hopefully I can avoid that pitfall from here on out!_

_Also, thank you to my other reviewers, **linalove** and **Mistia**, as well as my very first reviewer, **Marvelgeek42**. I'm hoping to keep up a pretty consistent updating schedule, so until next time, cheers!_


	5. Chapter 5

"_Will_!"

Gwen's voice was shrill and infuriated as she pounded angrily on the brittle front door of the old Caster home - where she had found him in the first place. She had thought having dinner with Bryce would be helpful, that she would somehow feel better after receiving some kind of answer. Bryce had been a source of answers, true enough - he was filled with answers about who Will Caster was, how his father had known him, what he had _done_. Gwen, however, felt no better about her situation after having heard them. She knew that the real Will Caster should not have been the thirty-year-old man from the screen of the Psi - he was a man about the same age as Mr. Waters. He had been the cause of the Great Collapse.

"Doctor _Caster_, open this goddamn door!"

Will emerged, pulling open his front door and being immediately met with the sensation of Gwen's palm colliding with his face. His head snapped to one side, and it took him a brief moment to stop seeing stars, and to process the idea that he was actually feeling pain again. _Pain_.

"You didn't tell me who you _were_," Gwen hissed angrily, her chest heaving with each furious breath as he slowly turned his head to face her again with a dumbfounded expression. "You - you -"

"This isn't safe," Will said through gritted teeth, gently grabbing a hold of her petite forearm and pulling her inside. "We have to talk in here, alright?"

Gwen yanked her arm away, but obliged nonetheless, crossing her arms and facing away as she followed and Will shut the front door behind them. The house was dark, old and in disarray, and a single old mattress had been pulled out into the center of the floor to be used as a bed. She felt a pang of pity for his situation - guilt, even, for the fact that he wouldn't be in it if it were not for her experiment on Duggan. There had been so many other options - so many more logical options - but even then, her curiosity and ambition had gotten the best of her.

But it didn't matter, she reminded herself. She hadn't come up with any of this on her own. She wheeled around and glared at the man in front of her, who for nearly a month she had regarded as her confidant, even though she wasn't even sure he was _real_.

"The whole time, you could've told me who you were - what you did -"

"If you knew about me, you might've thrown away the data card with my _consciousness_ on it -"

"Maybe I _should_ have," Gwen retorted darkly. "Maybe we'd all be better off, but instead, you're stuck here, and I'm stuck trying to cover up why a man is missing."

"Because of you, I have a chance to continue my work -"

"Because of _us_, a man is dead!" Gwen said - her voice, already shrill and quavering, cracked mid-sentence, and she walked a few paces before shaking her head and looking out the covered window. Will exhaled with his hands clasped over his lips, unable to respond immediately as his mind attempted to reason through this - it wasn't like before. The last feeling he remembered - if one could call it remembering - before Gwen found him in the garden was the sense of immediately knowing and processing _anything. _Compared to that feeling, to that capability, the limitations of being only human seemed to wear him down in more ways than one.

"He's not dead. He's just _me_," he said, garnering a shocked expression from Gwen. Will grimaced as well at the clumsiness of his own words, of his poor communication. "Listen - I'm _still _Milford Duggan, he wasn't destroyed -"

"No," she interrupted sternly. "You are _not_ Milford Duggan. You're living in his cells, you've taken over his body, but you will never be him, and I don't know where he is. It's probably like you said. He has _ceased to exist_," she said, her voice heavily dripping with bitterness. She nearly felt the impulse to cry at the realization that this was the perfect crime - the perfect way to make a man disappear without any evidence - except for the fact that her conscience wouldn't allow it. What was worse is that now that she had vented out some of her anger and allowed rational thinking to return, she realized that Will didn't necessarily _consciously_ choose this either. That was the problem - the question of whether he had been sentient, whether he had been self-aware, was one that even he couldn't answer. He could swear up and down that he _was_, he could swear to the moon and back, but he could never really prove it.

Gwen looked again at Will Caster with a mixture of fury, fear, and sadness before rushing out the door and back to her car.

The entire drive home, Gwen wanted only to force herself to forget this - eventually, they would all forget, and she could have her life back. She could have her career back. But she knew that she could never really forget what was happening, nor could she forget the part she had played in it. There was no way of forgetting the fact that she had, as revenge for a slight against her, she sentenced a man to _non-existence_. She had to stop and cry alone for a few minutes when she pulled up in front of her own house, and only when she stepped out of her own car did she realize that her father was home as well. Facing him, she realized, was something that she had not in the least prepared herself to do. But when it was time, she conceded, it was simply time.

In her head, Gwen was coming up with what to say to her father - what she could possibly do to start mending the chasm that had formed between them since she accepted the position with Project Generativity - she was prepared for him to be furious, to say that he told her saw. Donald Buchanan had warned his daughter many times that her rosy outlook on what moving up in the ranks of the Gatekeepers would be like was misguided, that she was just going to be hurt, and Gwen had dismissed it every time. He had every right to say he told her so.

However, when she opened the door and found him sitting on the couch just waiting for her, not distracting himself with dinner or the evening news, or even the radio, Gwen found words lacking. She simply hurried over and sat on the sofa next to him, wrapping her arms around his midsection and nestling into to his shoulder as if she was a child again.

"Gwen. _Gwenny_," he said, running a hand over her hair - and if Gwen had thought she was done crying in the car, she was quickly proven wrong as the affectionate petname only served to open the floodgates again.

"I'm so sorry, Daddy," she said, shaking her head and clenching her eyes shut. "I should have listened - I didn't mean -"

"They've told me about what happened - shh," he said, wrapping an arm protectively around his daughter's shoulders. In some ways - in _most_ ways - she was a mature grown woman. Gwendolyn May Buchanan - who, by the way, loathed her full name - was exceptionally bright, and wise beyond her years. But perhaps it was because he had done such a thorough job of protecting her that at times, she was still just like a child. She was smart, yes, but she wasn't _brave._

"You don't need to explain anything to me. We're going to fix this," he assured - and now, like in years before, Don Buchanan's word was enough for his daughter as she nestled into the couch and cried herself to sleep. This had all gotten out of hand, she thought as she dozed off. All she had wanted was to live her dreams, to fulfill all of her lofty ambitions, and it had come to this.

She couldn't even tell her father the truth, she thought as her eyes drifted shut. If Chairman Donald Buchanan's daughter was found to have killed a man and in his place, brought back the man responsible for the Great Collapse, they would both be ruined.

* * *

Gwen woke the next morning to find herself wrapped in a blanket with a few too many pillows placed under her head while she still remained on the couch - since she was a child, her father had always given her more pillows than she needed, as though he feared she needed the extra protection. For a time, she had come to find it crowded and smothering, but now, it was possibly the only source of comfort she had. He had already had to leave for work, and Gwen felt a pang of guilt when she realized that he had probably needed to come in early to start figuring out what to do about _Duggan_.

Feet dragging, she got dressed and made her way to work again, only to find everyone gathered outside the entrance - all behind a ribbon of yellow police tape. Gwen waded through the crowd until she spotted a familiar head of blonde hair, waving to get Bryce's attention so that they were able to meet halfway in the throng of people.

"What happened?" Gwen asked shakily. "Is this - is this because -"

"No - hey, this isn't about you, alright? You don't have anything to worry about," he said, placing his hands on her shoulders with an encouraging smile, even though he knew that saying she had nothing to worry about wouldn't stop her from doing so anyway. "You look a little better today."

"I managed to get a little bit of sleep in," she shrugged weakly, dismissing his comment and refusing to change the subject. "Bryce, what's happening?"

"Break-in," he said simply, his brow furrowing at her insistence on answers. "The directors are saying that RIFT is behind it, they're keeping us all outside. They have detectives, a bomb squad - no one knows what to expect in there -"

"_RIFT_?" Gwen asked in disbelief. "I thought they disbanded a _long_ time ago - there's no reason for them to exist anymore," she defended, tense with indignation. "That's what the Gatekeepers are for, to keep anyone from becoming too powerful, like…" her voice trailed off, and she shook her head to dispel the cloud of guilt that came with even _thinking_ Will Caster's name. But even that paled in comparison to the idea that RIFT felt like it had to step in and intervene in her _father's_ organization.

"That's the point - there've been whispers of them regrouping for the past year," Bryce explained, holding Carmen by the forearm and protectively pulling her away from the large crowd. "They think the Gatekeepers are becoming too powerful now -"

"But why a break-in?" Gwen asked, shaking her head and crossing her arms over herself. "They were known for _killing_, not stealing."

"We don't even know if anything's gone missing - I've been here for hours and I haven't heard a thing," Bryce admitted. He groaned and glanced around before pulling Gwen away towards the parking lot where there wouldn't be crowds. Even if she wasn't the pressing issue, he could tell easily that every time she passed, Gwen was receiving stares and whispers. The Gwen Buchanan he knew would never have tolerated it - she would have spoken up, defended herself, proven them wrong. But instead, she seemed to be continually shrinking in spirit, becoming pale and fearful and small. "_Gwenny_," he said in a doleful voice before he was able to stop himself. "You've been really different since - well, you know since when. And I understand," he added quickly. "But I'm worried about you. _Everyone_ is. You used to tell me everything."

The last statement was said with such sadness that Gwen almost felt her shoulders sag with the weight of it. Bryce dug his hands into his pockets and shook his head, looking down at his feet as he realized he might as well continue talking.

"Ever since they moved you into Generativity, you've been distant - like everything is one big secret," he said honestly. "And you're my best friend, I wouldn't say this if I didn't - if I didn't _care_. I don't like what it's done to you. This was supposed to make you happy."

Gwen gave a humorless laugh and crossed her arms over herself. That had been the intention once, to be happy. "It just isn't what I thought it would be," she admitted, not yet able to look Bryce in the face because of how much she was failing to tell him. "It's not what I expected at all."

"You could always asked to come back," he said hopefully. Gwen shook her head and shot him a brief, sad smile.

"I don't think going back is an option anymore."

Bryce frowned, scoffing and lifting his gaze to look off to the side - for the the first time, Gwen felt like Bryce was, for some reason, angry with her.

"Gwen, come on - please don't keep secrets from me," he said sternly. Gwen was unfamiliar with _this_ Bryce, who was not easygoing and full of humor, but rather forceful and demanding. He seemed almost _bitter_. "First my dad, now you? I know I'm not as _smart_ as my dad, or as you, or -"

"Bryce, it's not that!" Gwen said - and they both froze when they realized that out of reflex, Gwen had reached out and grabbed a hold of his hands, squeezing them tightly. Bryce looked down at their intertwined fingers, then back up at his best friend's face which had gone slightly red. "There's just a lot going on that I'm not _ready_ to talk about. We all have secrets," she shrugged, gently releasing his hands and dropping her hands to her sides. And Bryce couldn't help but agree - he, too, was keeping a secret from his best friend after all that very much involved her. "I just - I couldn't cope with dragging you down too, Bryce. Okay?"

"Okay…"

The pair shared a strange awkward silence - a new experience for both of them in the other's company - until they heard a voice from the entrance to the large high-rise building. "We're all clear, there doesn't seem to be any danger here," the officer said as he stepped out of the revolving door and began removing the police tape. "You can all go on inside."

Gwen and Bryce glanced at one another again, and she attempted to give him another smile. "Can we… at least _act _like everything's normal? Please?" she asked gently. He laughed quietly and nodded before gesturing for them both to go inside.

By the end of the day, however, even pretending to be normal was supremely exhausting. Gwen managed to get home and enter her empty house - her father was _still_ likely at the office. However, moments after coming in the door, she found herself too exhausted to even drag herself upstairs to bed and instead, she flopped tiredly onto the couch. She closed her eyes to rest when there was a sound from the door - she was jolted fully awake when she realized she hadn't locked the door behind her.

Gwen leapt to her feet, but found that the person turning the doorknob was only Mr. Waters, wearing a large brown coat. He wordlessly shut the door behind him before walking over and handing her something sealed inside a plastic bag - film.

"I only took enough of the footage to make sure no one would see when Duggan became Will," Mr. Waters said in a low voice, stumbling over the latter half of the sentence, as even he struggled to describe what had happened. Gwen's mouth hung slightly agape. Much like their written records, the footage on the security cameras in the lower floors did not retain anything in digital form for fear of it falling into the wrong hands. Max Waters had been the one who broke into the Gatekeeper Headquarters - and he'd done it because of her. She let out a shuddering breath as she took the bag from his hand, shaking her head incredulously. "This is very dangerous, Gwen. You know that you could be in a lot of trouble, right?"

"I know," she said, hanging her head in shame. "And I understand if - if you want me to stay _far_ away from Bryce, to leave him out of it -"

"Gwen, he needs you," Mr. Waters said, shaking his head and placing a hand on the girl's shoulder, which garnered an expression of complete surprise from her for what felt like the hundredth time lately. "Ever since you two were tiny, he's been at his best when he's with you, and I want the best for my son. All of this will pass -"

"What if it doesn't?"

"It's _going _to."

Gwen drew a few shuddering breaths and looked Max Waters directly in the eyes, seeing for the first time that he didn't seem like an old man at all. He was set on _something_, though what it was, she couldn't quite say. It hit her then that there was something she had yet to ask him.

"Did you mean for me to find Will Caster when you sent me to the old house?" she asked, her chest feeling heavy as she anticipated an answer, but she received now. Mr. Waters simply hung his head and shrugged.

"He and his wife, Evelyn, were… _dear_ friends," he admitted vaguely. "And I had a feeling they were there somehow. I was sentimental. I _hoped_ you would find something. But Gwen, I didn't think there was a way to bring either of them back, not the way that you've managed to."

Gwen saw a strange flicker of something in the older man's eyes when he mentioned Will Caster's wife, and she was briefly silent until she took a deep breath and eyed him questioningly.

"What happened to her, then? To Evelyn Caster?"

Max paused and tensed visibly for a moment before releasing a deep breath from his chest, shaking his head and nodding towards the sofa.

"We should sit down," Max said simply. "This isn't going to be a _short_ story."

* * *

_A/N's_

_I guess I'm breaking my resolution to no longer muddle my story with author's notes, but hopefully this is unobtrusive. I received a private message in response to my last update, and the sender asked me to publicly respond like it was a review:_

**_"I feel like it's really inappropriate because technically there is a huge age gap (Will is bound to be at least almost 60 technically even if he is in a younger body) but I am really shipping young!Will/Gwen in this story. Do you have any plans on them being a couple?"_**

_To be honest, while I definitely want them to have a deep connection, I don't feel very enthusiastic about making this story centered around a romance. I guess the best way to put it is... if there is supposed to be a romantic aspect of Will/Gwen, my writing has not brought me to a point where it feels natural for the characters. I'm not completely opposed to the idea, but I'm not going to force it if it doesn't feel like a natural, organic progression. It's not all written yet (understandably, because I only saw the movie when it came out, just like everyone else), so nothing is set in stone, though I do have a rough outline of the direction I'd like to take._

_Also, to **jseah**, I'm happy to have a biologist onboard! I'm a nurse, so my knowledge is limited to the really minimal material I had in school, but I'm definitely interested in learning more! I was trying to brainstorm something wherein the combination of reverse transcriptase and the nanotechnology from the film could somehow have the capacity to "hijack" an organism - but I realize it's a big stretch. There are a couple other instances where there's a little bit of fanta-science (as I like to call it) behind the virus/nanoparticle hybrids that plays a role in the story, but I hope you can forgive me for it!  
_

_Thank you again for all of your feedback, it is seriously amazing to have this story so well-received, even though the movie itself has not received such a warm reception. (Also, I thoroughly encourage everyone to check out **Amber Entropy**'s story in the Transcendence fandom if you're enjoying mine!) I'm going to continue to strive to keep things fresh and interesting for all of you, and I hope to continue hearing from you all in return. So, until next time, cheers!_


	6. Chapter 6

"... you remind me of her a lot, actually," Mr. Waters said, attempting to fill the silence after his story - the full story of what had happened to Will and Evelyn Caster, how he had been friends with Will since they were young men in college. "You're intelligent, ambitious. Caring. Just like Evelyn. Will was very lucky to have her…"

Gwen eyed Mr. Waters with a small amount of questioning at the way his voice trailed off, but before she could really understand what was going on in his mind, he spoke up again. "You have to be careful. Because if you get into trouble - any kind of trouble - I know that my son will do _anything_ to get you out of it."

"He's smarter than that."

"He loves you. What he _knows_ won't matter," Max supplied. "Believe me."

Gwen froze, unsure of how to react. She'd had a feeling, of course, for a short while now that Bryce felt something towards her, and she couldn't honestly deny feeling something for him as well - but it just wasn't the time to _think_ of the possibility. She stammered a few syllables before shaking her head and looking away. Max cleared his throat and stood up, walking over to where she had placed her work bag down on the table. He glanced at her for permission first, and when she granted it, he reached in and went looking for the leatherbound journal that he described as containing her notes. He began thumbing through the pages and ripped out the most recent pages in one swift motion. She flinched slightly, as though the possibility of him damaging her work physically hurt her as well, but Max Waters held up the pages for her to see that they were still intact.

"I'm going to keep these safe," he explained. "No one will think to look for them with me."

"Will is going to want me to bring Evelyn back," Gwen said suddenly as her eyes caught sight of some of the doodles on the notes that had made Will's return possible - these things, like so many others, brought the events of recent days rushing back in an unpleasant wave that still made Gwen feel sick. "But I know I can't keep going with this, not knowing what I- what I already did. Whatever happened to Duggan was because of me. It was _wrong_. But if Will Caster is the same man that you told me about, all he'll see is the possibility to do it again -"

"I'm not sure the possibility exists anymore, Gwen," Mr. Waters said, shaking his head.

"But he'll want me to find a way -"

"Of course he would, _I _want you to find a way," he admitted before catching himself. He groaned and scratched the back of his neck. Gwen blinked at him with nothing to say, attempting to piece together something she was already beginning to suspect, but was interrupted by the sound of her front door opening yet again. Mr. Waters only just managed to tuck the papers away into his coat pocket before Donald Buchanan entered the living room.

"_Max_," he acknowledged with a familiar nod.

"Don," Mr. Waters replied with almost a tone of reverence. "I was just leaving."

Max gave Gwen one more nod and patted where he had hidden away her papers in his pocket before taking his leave of the Buchanan home. Gwen paused and was about to go upstairs to sleep until her father cleared his throat and brandished a bag containing a few boxes of chinese takeout. He gave his daughter a weak smile.

"I know it's been a long day, Gwenny, but I was hoping you'd have dinner with me?" he asked. "You know, like we used to before."

Gwen chuckled and sat down on the couch; her father followed suit and pulled out a pair of the disposable wooden chopsticks from the bag and handing them to her. He waited until she had taken a bite from the small box of potstickers before he cleared his throat to speak.

"Gwenny, I owe you an apology."

"Dad, no-"

"No, _please_ listen," he said, holding up a hand to halt her protests as she placed down the food she had just started eating. "That night, I wasn't even the one you ran to when it happened. I was at there work - I was two floors away, it would have taken you less than a minute to come to me, and you ran to Max Waters instead because I wasn't the one you trusted to protect you. I did that to us, and I'm sorry."

Gwen felt her chest grow heavy with emotion, and she clenched her jaw to keep from crying - but it was difficult. Her father wasn't an emotional man, and when he got this way, when his stoic demeanor broke, even for just a moment, she knew it was the serious. The last time she had seen him really show he was _feeling_, rather than being her pillar of support, her rock, was when her mother had died. This situation that she gotten herself into with Milford Duggan, she realized, was _that_ bad. And again, she broke, allowing her eyes to water. Seeing the change in his daughter's expression, Don Buchanan reached forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, gently coaxing her to lay her head on his shoulder. "I should have supported you when you told me about Generativity - I should have been happy for you," he said guiltily. "And instead, I pushed you away - you didn't even _come to me_ -"

"It doesn't matter anymore, Daddy," Gwen said miserably, shaking her head and wrapping her arms around him. "I don't want to -"

"We're going to track down Milford Duggan and make him pay for this," Don said resolutely, and Gwen slowly pulled away to reveal her own fearful expression which he couldn't understand. "He needs to-"

"If - if he could just stay away forever, it'd be better for everyone," she said, suddenly looking away in shame - Don interpreted it as shame for what had happened to her, and he reached out and took her hands into his, squeezing them gently. Gwen squeezed back briefly before pulling her hands away and folding them in her lap, her gaze still glued resolutely to the floor. Don exhaled through his nostrils, feeling the outrage that any father would feel upon seeing his daughter this way - in this moment, it became a personal vendetta that he _would_ find Milford Duggan and make him pay whether or not Gwen wanted it to be so - before he straightened up and cleared his throat to speak again with regained composure.

"Director Hadley has informed me that he wants to give you some time off to take care of yourself," Don said carefully - the tightness in his voice was one that Gwen knew indicated displeasure, and she finally looked at him, her face slightly puckered in concern. It took a few moments of mulling before she realized what he meant.

"You mean, I'm _suspended_?" she asked, shaking her head incredulously. "You can't -"

"I can't do anything about it, I tried," Don said, running a hand over his forehead tiredly. "The by-laws don't allow me to step in and veto the directors' decisions, and Hadley said that until Duggan is found and this situation is clarified, it's better for you and for the organization…"

_Until Duggan is found_. Gwen's shoulders drooped in defeat, and she felt tears welling in her eyes again for a completely different reason. She had worked so hard to even get her father to allow her into the organization, and now, once she finally had managed to get one foot up the ladder, it was _gone_. She buried her head in her hands, shaking her head miserably. Don reached out and gently rubbed his hand over his daughter's back.

"I - I have to leave for the Gatekeepers' Summit in the Netherlands in the morning," he reminded her. " It's three weeks, I can take you with me -"

"No. I - I don't want to go," she said, looking up and revealing her red eyes and slowly splotching face. "I just need some time alone…"

"_Okay_," Don said reluctantly. "I'll have Mr .Waters check up on you while I'm gone - I don't want you cooped up by yourself in this house with no one knowing how you are."

Gwen laughed weakly and looked up at her father with a lopsided smile. In front of everyone else, he was granite. He was stone. But for her, he was nothing close - she leaned over and hugged him tightly again, and in that moment, Don Buchanan could have sworn she was still the little girl he'd practically had to raise on his own, the little girl he had always protected. To him, Gwen always _would_ be that little girl.

"I love you, Gwenny," he said, embracing his daughter tightly. "And I'm going to make sure this gets fixed. You've worked too hard, and I'm not going to let them take that away from you."

"I love you too, Daddy," she said with a sad smile. He couldn't fix this, she realized. No one could.

* * *

_A/N's_

_Briefly - I know this is a short chapter, but the next update will be sooner to make up for it. This will be a double-whammy update, so stay tuned! In the meantime, also check up "Singularity's End" in the Transcendence fandom by **jseah**. I will be uploading Chapter 7 of this story soon. Cheers!_


	7. Chapter 7

Gwen's singular source of pride and amusement in her first week of suspension was her ability to keep herself from going insane from boredom. She had spent the majority of her time alone, and this Monday morning in particular, she had hardly been motivated enough to get out of bed, let alone get dressed appropriately to do much of anything. Still dressed to be able to go back to sleep at any moment, she sat on the couch and turned on the small television set to the morning news, balancing a bowl of oatmeal in her lap.

"This is Lena Miramonte, reporting live from outside of the Gatekeepers Headquarters -"

Gwen's eyes widened at the sight of the scene - a large crowd of protestors with signs and burning effigies of the Gatekeepers' logo. She reached for the remote and turned up the volume, leaning closer and frowning.

"Since early this morning, the militant anti-technology organization, Revolutionary Independence from Technology - or RIFT - has staged its first major public action since the Great Collapse. Several small explosions have been reported, without any injuries or casualties…"

But Gwen began tuning out the news reporter's voice when she noticed in the corner of the screen that in the crowd, clad in a dark hooded sweatshirt and dark sunglasses, was a familiar figure who seemed to be looking for something, not even noticing he was caught as part of the crowd.

"_Will_," she said, her eyes wide in disbelief. In a hurry, she hurried upstairs to change her clothes so that she looked at least somewhat less of a mess before rushing out the door to her car. Will Caster was making a careless mistake, and careless was something that neither of them currently could afford to be. Max Waters had described Will Caster as one of the most brilliant minds of his time - so why was he doing something so obviously foolish?

When she arrived in at his Berkeley home, she found that she had beaten him there. Not caring much for niceties, she used the key that Mr. Waters had given her and Bryce long ago to get inside where she would wait until finally, about an hour later, Will walked through the door. He removed his sunglasses in the dim light of the house and stared at Gwen in surprise as she stood from the chair she'd taken up station in, striding across the room so that she was toe to toe with the man.

"Why were you _there_?" she asked in outrage, her face contorted into a furious frown. "I saw you on the news, that's dangerous! No one is supposed to know -"

"No one _saw_ me -"

"I saw you!"

"Maybe you saw me because you _wanted_ to see me. You… created me, in a way, and any scientist worth their weight is attached to their work. I'm in no position to judge," he said dismissively, walking past her and towards a table in the back, where she realized he had rigged together and old computer from parts that had remained strewn around the long abandoned house. He was still at it - whatever _it_ was. Gwen sneered slightly and rolled her eyes.

"You realize that if people trace you back to me -"

"No one's going to do that. I made sure Max took care of it," he said simply, attempting to boot up the makeshift computer with little success. He frowned as the screen briefly flickered to life, but went dead again. He muttered a string of curses and struck the monitor on the side with his hand before looking back at Gwen. "I was the one who told him to take the footage. I've been… worried about you."

Gwen crossed her arms and looked around the house, realizing that while there were lights still around the house, and that there was obviously power if he was running a computer, the entire house was still fairly dark. At the idea that he had actually been concerned for her, she felt her resolve to hate him waver. He was right, after all. She had brought him back, and she, like any scientist who loved what they did, cared for her work. "You have electricity - why don't you turn on a -"

"_No_!" Will said suddenly, walking over and grabbing a hold of her wrist as she reached out to turn the switch on a nearby lamp. She blinked at his hand enclosed around hers with a raised eyebrow, and he let out a heaving sigh before explaining, "The light and the noise are all - they're a lot to process. It's a little overstimulating."

It hit Gwen that if that was the case, then going out to the protest at Headquarters must have been excruciating - and that he had still gone out to look for her, thinking she had been there. She gently pulled her hand away from his and dropped it to her side, her temper finally calming to the point that the anger faded from her expression entirely. "It's understandable," she said in the calm, almost clinical voice that she associated more with work than with anywhere else. "You have all your memories, all of your _mental_ faculties, but this body is practically brand new. It hasn't been conditioned to tune out noise, or adapt to light - it'll be a while before -"

"_Theoretically_, I understand everything you're saying," Will answered with a weak laugh; Gwen realized it was so jarring, even now, to hear him express actual emotion when she had grown so used to him simply being the voice from a small computer. "But in practice, it's hard to consider it _completely normal_ when I'm like… well, I'm like a damn toddler. I get hungry, I need to eat. I get restless, I need to get up and move around. It's hell," he admitted, looking down and scratching the back of his neck in shame. "But it works out - I generate my own electricity so no one can trace that I'm back here," he added, gesturing to an old exercise bike he had rigged to hook up to a makeshift power generator.

"In fairness, that's pretty ingenious," Gwen said with a slightly grudging smile. She wasn't sure if she was still truly angry at Will, or if seeing him simply made her remember how angry she was at herself, but in any case, she couldn't stay mad for long when she saw the conditions he was living in. "It'll get better," she supplied gently. "It just takes some reconditioning."

There was hardly anywhere else for the conversation to go from that point, and she couldn't simply power him down and go about her life like before. He had run impulsively out to the protest because he had been worried about her; she had run impulsively to his house because she had been worried about him. It was uncomfortable and strange - and, having satisfied her concern about his well-being, Gwen decided it was appropriate enough of a time to leave. She turned towards the door when suddenly, Will grabbed her by the wrist again and pulled her to turn back around to face him. His expression was one of unexplained tumult, and he seemed to search her face for a moment as though he were troubled by some kind of mystery and somewhere in her features there was a hidden answer.

"You don't realize what this is _like_," he said, shaking his head sullenly. "I - I should be like Max. I should be _old_, I should be growing old with my wife."

He walked across the room to the window, which had the shutters drawn, and peered outside only as long as he eyes could bear before looking away again. "But instead, I'm back - my body and my mind feel like they did when I was _thirty_, it doesn't make sense."

"It does, actually," Gwen said, crossing her arms over herself and taking a few careful steps towards Will, unsure of how frank she ought to be. "Aging is the process of degeneration of the body you _had_ - this is a new one."

"Then why didn't I come back as a newborn?"

"You're thirty because Milford Duggan was about thirty. It was a first trial, I never expected it to work perfectly," she explained, feeling a strange sense of _power_ yet again at being the one who could answer the questions of a man who was a verifiable genius. "I've had a little bit of time to mull things over, believe me. I wondered about it too."

A silence settled between them again, and once more, Gwen was wondering if she had worn out her welcome. She cleared her throat and shuffled her feet slightly. "I'm gonna get some water," she said, glancing over in the direction that she knew the kitchen to be in.

"Max dropped off some food too, help yourself," Will said - when Gwen walked towards the kitchen, he didn't follow, but she didn't bother to ask where he was going. She instead made her way to the kitchen alone and managed to scrounge up a plastic cup from the supplies left on the counter - Max had probably left him enough for at least a week. She poured water from a large plastic jug into the cup and took a slow drink, leaning against the counter and sighing.

She took another swig from her water and shook her head, pushing her disheveled hair out of her face. Gwen was _livid_ with herself more than she was with Will, because she did not have the excuse of being a machine, of having pre-programmed algorithms that set her limits for her. She had played a complacent role in all of this, and she had consciously made the decisions that had made everything worse.

Whatever the influences had been, the fact still stood that she had gotten herself into this mess.

She glanced around the house and, in a gap between a doorjambs and walls that peered through the outside, she noticed that Will was standing outside in the backyard where she'd first found him - and at the realization of what _he_ was probably going through, her own misgivings suddenly seemed rather small. Refilling her own cup of water as well as a second for Will, she walked out quietly to the garden, leaning against the rickety frame of the back door. She watched him in silence as he stared around the garden before clearing her throat.

Will turned to face her with a sad smile on his face. "It's - a very _unkempt _garden nowadays, isn't it?" he chuckled bitterly. "Evelyn - my wife - was always the one with the green thumb. I guess I like to think maybe she's still here, like I was."

"You don't need to explain yourself to me," she said, holding the water out to him. He muttered a brief 'thank you' as he took it from her hand and looked back around at the old plants now interwoven with thick overgrowths of weeds. "It's natural, you know - not to want to be alone. Humans are made to seek companionship. You're a _doctor_, you should know that."

"I _do_. I…" He froze, not even realized he had opened his mouth to speak before the first word left his lips, and by then, he had already been heard. "I don't think I ever really thanked you. For bringing me back. For - for going through all of this," he said. Gwen laughed sadly and looked over at him.

"Yeah. My biggest achievement, and no one can ever know about it," she said in a strange mix of humor and bitterness. "Just my luck."

"Why weren't you at Headquarters?" he asked suddenly, evading the pang of guilt that accompanied the idea of her bringing him back needing to remain a secret. "I went looking for you."

"I've been - put on leave. Suspended, for my own good," Gwen recited with derision, rolling her eyes and taking a swig from her cup. "And if you say '_you are displeased'_, I'm probably going to kick your ass," she added with a smirk. They both laughed, albeit weakly, until Will could no longer keep it up. He walked over so that he was standing just inches in front of Gwen, gently cupping the crook of her arm with his hand.

"I'm… _sorry_," he said, shaking his head. The amount of emotion in his eyes now was still no less novel to Gwen, and she founding herself drowning in them. "I hate that I'm benefitting from all of these terrible things that are happening to you. You were living your dream when you were accepted into Project Generativity, and… I used you."

"To be honest, I don't think you had the capacity to do otherwise," Gwen shrugged calmly - but rather than being comforting or reassuring, Will found her calm demeanor terrifying. It meant she had grown complacent, that she was _defeated_. "It's nowhere in a computer's mindset to do something counterproductive to its own survival. I'm still fairly convinced that you couldn't help it."

"But I can _now_," Will pointed out. "I - I could turn myself in, end all this trouble you're in."

"I don't want that," Gwen said, shaking her head. Their eyes met again, and this time, Gwen turned away out of an inability to submit to that kind of intensity again. She took a few steps back and drew a few deep breaths before looking at Will again. "Do you - do you still want me to stay here for a while? So you're not alone?" she asked hesitantly. Will, on the other hand, did not hesitate for a moment.

"Yeah."

* * *

_A/N's_

_A lot of talking going on in this chapter, setting the stage for more action to come. In the next chapter, there will be some significant events that force Will and Gwen to learn to trust one another. Stay tuned! Cheers!_


	8. Chapter 8

Max Waters was thumbing through the pages he had taken from Gwen's research notes, poring over them intensely in the light of his small desk lamp. They were _brilliant_, he realized - far more than even he had expected from her. Truth be told, he could have encouraged her to take the simple way out of things, to turn Will in and apologize, to say she had gone too far. But then, her discovery would be out of her own hands - it would belong to the Gatekeepers, and that was something Max Waters knew would spell doom in one way or another.

Gwen Buchanan's work was brilliant and meticulous - if Evelyn had been alive now to see it, she would have taken Gwen on as a protegee in a heartbeat. If Evelyn -

"Dad?" Bryce piped up, peering into the door of his father's study. "What are you looking at?"

"_Nothing_," he snapped, shoving the papers back into the drawer he had designated to hide them in. "It's nearly midnight, what are you still doing awake?"

"News," Bryce said hesitantly, his eyes still inextricably glued to whatever his father had obviously just hidden. "They're interviewing Christie Duggan - I thought you might want to watch it."

Without waiting for a response, Bryce moved to turn on the television set in the study where indeed, the very pregnant Christie Duggan was the sole face on the screen of a camera close-up, being interviewed on the late-night news. Her face was red and tearful.

"I don't believe for one second that my husband tried to do what Miss Buchanan is accusing him of," she said in a choked voice, wiping at her eyes with a tissue. "Milford was no saint, but I know he wouldn't do that."

"Then where do you believe he's gone?" the host's voice inquired from offscreen. "If he isn't in hiding after committing a crime -"

"That's a question for Gwen Buchanan to answer," Christie spat in revulsion, her eyes narrowed at the mere mention of Gwen's name. She opened her mouth to speak again when suddenly, there was a loud crash from offscreen, and the sound of panic and tumult on the live broadcast as a masked figure with a speech modifier positioned over their mouth forced their way in - several other masked figures came in behind them, subduing the others on the set, while their apparent leader approached. The camera swung widely and focused on the person's face.

"_Hello America_," the Leader said, their voice disguised and unrecognizable. "We are RIFT, and we are _back_…"

Bryce and his father shared a shocked glance at the occurrence, which they appeared to have caught just in the nick of time, and Bryce shakily reached out to turn up the volume.

"We are here today to voice solidarity and offer RIFT's protection to Gwendolyn Buchanan," the Leader continued, glancing over their shoulder at Christie Duggan, whose eyes went wide with outrage. "Because you have endangered the integrity of the Gatekeepers by sharing your story, you have been betrayed. And what they have done to you, they would not hesitate to do to anyone else who draws attention to their flawed _elite_. We extend our hand to you and invite you to our cause - and we demand that your father, Chairman Donald Buchanan, do what is right for the betterment of his daughter, and of mankind, by...reevaluating the position of the Gatekeepers. Do not forget. We _made_ you, Chairman Buchanan. You needed us."

"RIFT wants… to recruit Gwen?" Bryce asked, shaking his head incredulously. "But why?"

"They think she's been dismissed from the organization to cover something up," Max said, covering his mouth and frowning. He stared at the Leader on the screen, his face briefly betraying an emotion that looked like... recognition. "Gwen is the Chairman's daughter, and she could very well be more vulnerable than ever -"

"We invite any of our _esteemed colleagues_ to join as at a bonfire this evening," the voice on the television screen continued. "At the home of an _old friend_."

* * *

Gwen was normally a heavy sleeper, but in recent days, she had taken to doing the opposite - it was little surprise when, even from a distance, the sound of a car caused her to stir. She had fallen asleep, curled into a ball on an armchair in Will Caster's living room while he slept on the old mattress on the floor. She got up and pulled the coat he was using as a blanket off of him before crouching down and shaking him awake.

"Someone's coming," she said in a low voice, glancing over her shoulder at the window. There was no sign of headlights yet, but she knew it would only be a matter of moments. "Will, it's not safe here. No one can see us here."

Will blinked groggily, but made to protest as he got to his feet and followed her to the back door. Gwen's gaze flitted around conspiratorially as she managed to silently open the back gate and gesture with her thumb to a nearby road.

"I left the car down that way," she said, still not able to look at Will as her gaze seemed unable to stay in one spot for more than a second. They walked briskly, concealed in shadows in the trees along the roadside until they reached the car. Will had his hand on the doorhandle of the passenger side when he suddenly froze. He smelled… _smoke._ Noticing the sudden halting of his movements, Gwen followed his gaze back to the house where they saw the beginnings of flames beginning to climb upwards. They had just _barely_ made it out in time.

"No…" Will said, his eyes glued to the spot of his home bursting into flames. He let go of the handle of the car door and took a few steps away before Gwen hurried back around and blocked his path. "I have to go back, what if Evelyn -"

"We have to _leave_, Will," Gwen hissed, grabbing a hold of his sleeve as he tried to get around her again. "We can't stay here."

There was the sound of jeers and shouts - the sound of _protests_ - and Will's jaw clenched visibly, setting his slightly emaciated face as he forced himself to tear his gaze away from his home and back to Gwen, whose own eyes were set as she gave his arm another tug.

"Get in the car," she said sternly. "Please."

It hit Will now that Gwen, despite the front she was gifted at putting on, was terrified of what was happening. That realization finally managed to tip the scale of his resolve and he turned and got into the car, slamming the door behind him before he could change his mind again. Gwen gave a sigh of relief before she got into the driver's seat and made for the most isolated route she could think of back home.

"It's going to be impossible to bring her back now," Will said, his voice flat and his gaze glued straight forward once the burning house was finally out of sight. "What if -"

"Will, I can't even get back to the lab anymore," she reasoned, not turning to even look at him as she drove down the dark road lit only by her own headlights. "Even if I could find a viable sample like what I found of you, there's not much I could _do_ anymore. Right now, we need to survive. That's all," she finished, shaking her head. "I just want to keep whatever is left of my life intact. _Please_."

The rest of the drive was relegated to a tense silence until, about an hour later, they had arrived back at the Buchanan household. Gwen pulled her car into the garage and shut the door behind her before nodding for Will to get out.

"I can hide you here for a while, at least," she said tiredly, finally glancing at him. He looked almost sickly now, and she couldn't necessarily blame him. She went to open the door and led him into the living room of the admittedly nice home - being Chairman of the Gatekeepers, one of the largest regulatory agencies in the world, had afforded Donald Buchanan a more than ample living.

Gwen disappeared to what Will presumed was the kitchen for a short time before returning with a glass of water in each hand, holding one out to him. For the first time, she had nothing to say, and it was just as well because Will would have had nothing to say in reply. Neither was sure of the next step. They sat in tired silence, and Will very nearly dozed off until again woken up by Gwen's hand closing onto his shoulder and giving him a vigorous shake.

"Someone's knocking on the door, go upstairs," she hissed in a whisper. Again groggy and in no way mindful enough to ask questions, Will complied and hurried up, turning into the first door he could find - once she considered his hiding place satisfactory, Will heard Gwen open the door.

"Bryce? Mr. Waters?"

"Gwen, thank God you're okay," Bryce said, suddenly lurching forward and wrapping his arms around her so tightly that she might've worried about her head popping off, had she not been so surprised. Mr. Waters slid in the door around them and shut it, clearing his throat - Bryce pulled away, slightly red in the face and they retreated further into the living room, away from the door and windows.

"Did you see the news?" Bryce said, shaking his head and frowning. "RIFT wants you - they made a statement about you and your father -"

"I don't know about… _any_ of this," Gwen said honestly, her expression falling. "Is it… because…?"

"Because of Duggan," Mr. Waters said, his expression stony and steady. "They think you were wrongfully terminated by the Gatekeepers, and they think they can use you to reach your father."

Gwen's mouth opened and she babbled a few syllables before realizing that if it was futile until she could compose herself. She slumped in defeat onto the couch and drew her knees to her chest. "I brought this on myself, didn't I?" she said in a quiet, fearful voice. "This is my mess."

"Don't be ridiculous - you didn't ask for any of this. You didn't deserve this," Bryce said, sitting down next to her and placing an arm around her shoulders. Rather than making her feel any better, however, Gwen inhaled deeply and gulped back a sob.

"You shouldn't be here, Bryce - you're such a good person, and if you're around me you're just going to get dragged down too," she said miserably, unable to look any of them in the eye.

"RIFT is going to come for you, it's inevitable," Max said, crossing his arms as he stood in front of the two younger adults on the sofa. "Gwen, if they don't like what you have to say -"

"We can't leave her alone like this, we can't let them find her," Bryce interrupted quickly, as though he couldn't bear to hear his father even finish the sentence. "What if we bring her with us? What if -"

"_No_," Gwen said resolutely. "I'm not going to stay with you, it's too much trouble. I can't ask that." She attempted to steady herself before she turned to look at Bryce, shaking her head sadly. "I have to do this without you -"

"No, you _don't_!"

"We need to stay calm," Max interrupted, gesturing with his arm between the pair as though he could physically break the tension that had built there. Gwen sighed and looked away, crossing her arms over herself. "Gwen, this is _not_ all your fault, and you know that." Gwen met Mr. Waters's gaze hesitantly and was able to pick up on what he meant - in his own way, he meant it as an apology for the role he had played in this. He glanced at the table and noticed that there were two water glasses, both relatively newly filled judging by the condensation on the sides. He glanced briefly at Gwen as he realized that someone else had to be in the house with her. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod in confirmation.

"You can't do this alone," he continued, reaching out and placing a hand over her shoulder. "RIFT is dangerous, and if they find out you're not really on their side, they're going to kill you."

The certainty in his voice caused Gwen's throat to constrict fearfully, and she was unable to restrain a gulp of a sob. "So I have to do what? Pretend? _Hide_?"

"I know a place where you can lay low for a while," Mr. Waters said carefully, unsure of how receptive she would be to the idea of being in hiding. "It'll give us time to think of something."

"But what about my dad?" Gwen asked, tensing visibly. "He'll know about this, he'll know about the news broadcast."

"I'll tell him that I'm keeping you safe somewhere - I'm sure he'll want that," Mr. Waters nodded, though in truth, he wasn't entirely sure how well Donald Buchanan would take the idea of his daughter being driven into hiding by RIFT.

"I'm going too -"

"Bryce, you can't," Mr. Waters said, holding up a hand to halt his son's suggestion before Gwen could have the opportunity to consider it. "If you disappear from work all of a sudden, it's going to look suspicious. You can't both go missing without anyone noticing."

Gwen reached out and gave Bryce's hand a gentle squeeze, her expression confirming that she agreed with his father. For the first time since they had known one another and been friends, Gwen Buchanan was going somewhere that he couldn't.

"We leave in the morning," Mr. Waters said, stepping backwards slightly and scratching the back of his neck. "Just get some rest, alright? And… make sure everything's in order."

Gwen nodded knowingly, but she felt a pang of guilt at the fact that they were speaking in code this way in front of Bryce, who had no idea what - _who_ was hiding upstairs. Even once Bryce and Mr. Waters had departed and Will had silently emerged from his hiding place upstairs, Gwen remained quietly contemplative on the sofa, resting her head in her hands. It was in a moment of clarity that she realized that she couldn't wait for Mr. Waters to be the one to reach out to her father and explain things to him - not when she had only just mended her relationship with him. Gwen straightened up and reached for their old rotary telephone, dialing the number Don had left scribbled for her to reach him.

She gripped the phone tightly as she heard the ringing. Once. Twice. Three times. Perhaps he was busy, she decided. She didn't even know what time it was in Amsterdam. What if she didn't reach him in time? What if -

"Hello?"

"_Daddy_," Gwen said, her voice heaving with relief. "Daddy, have you seen the news -"

"I was about to call you, I just heard - you're home, aren't you?" he asked frantically, and Gwen felt her throat tightening again. "Gwen, you can't let them find you. Call Max -"

"He just left," she replied. "He said he's going to bring me somewhere safe in the morning. Somewhere RIFT won't come looking for me. I don't know how long I'm going to need to stay there," she admitted weakly. She inhaled and decided she needed to make this quick, or else she might never be able to get off the phone with her father. She'd keep him on the line for comfort, for no reason at all, and she couldn't afford that kind of weakness. "But I'm going to be safe, Daddy. I'll see you again soon. I love you…"

And before he could speak a single word to stop her, Gwen hung up the phone, then moved to pull the cord out of the wall so he couldn't call back. She took a shuddering breath, and took a few moments to compose herself before looking up at Will, who had remained graciously silent throughout the conversation.

"I'm sorry," he supplied weakly. Gwen gave a bitter laugh and shook her head.

"Stop looking at me like that - I'm not a helpless little fawn caught in a trap," she tried to chuckle. "I'm Icarus. I got excited, I got ambitious, and I flew too close to the sun. That's all," she shrugged. With a brief pause before meeting his eyes again, Gwen tilted her head to the side slightly and added, "I think you know the feeling, don't you, Will?"

"It was never supposed to turn out like this," he said, his forehead wrinkling as he thought back to the day over twenty years ago - though it did not feel like nearly that long - when he had been shot. The moment of possibility when he, after being uploaded to PINN, had felt that sudden rushing of freedom and of knowing. "It wasn't supposed to go this far."

"Well," Gwen said, nodding to herself and looking at the ground. "It did."


	9. Chapter 9

"You don't need to carry those - I can get it, Mr. Waters. It's _fine_."

Gwen had managed to throw a small selection of things into a backpack before Max Waters returned - alone - to take her and Will somewhere far from the city, somewhere safe. He had brought out the old red pickup truck with a dented camper shell latched onto the back. Gwen recognized the old thing, but she also knew that he almost never used it. The truck bed was filled with old camping and fishing gear, with a space cleared into the middle.

"I can't risk you being seen," Max said as Gwen stared into the truck in mild confusion - it seemed to finally be hitting her that this was serious, that she was genuinely going to be hiding, and that from here on out, there was simply no way of predicting what was going to happen. She exhaled through pursed lips while Will climbed into the truck bed first, extending his hand to help her inside.

"There's a box in there - it's closed off with duct tape," Max supplied as he closed up the back of the truck, and Gwen looked around the truck until she found the box in question. When Max opened the driver's side door and slide open the small back window so they could speak, he glanced back at the pair that he was hiding in the back. "It's nothing much - a microscope, some agar plates. Enough to do a bit of poking around, I suspect."

"Mr. Waters?"

Max chuckled a little at Gwen's disbelief and drummed his knuckles gently on the window before starting the engine. "You can't just let them _stop_ you - you're doing good work. That's something not a lot of people can say," he shrugged, glancing briefly at Will, who might have felt slighted if he had noticed it at all. Gwen reached over and grabbed a ratty old blanket from a pile and pulled it over herself like a shawl to conceal herself, tossing one in Will's direction so he could do the same as Max backed out of the Buchanans' driveway, driving off in the still half-lit morning.

"Is this maybe a little heavy-handed, running away like refugees at the first sight of trouble? What can RIFT even _do_ to us, if they've been disbanded for twenty years?" Will asked, his gaze focused out the deeply tinted black window. Max gave a bitter chuckle and shook his head.

"Are you sure you're the one to be asking that, Will? You of all people?"

"If they're only just regrouping and their capabilities are limited to a couple of break-ins -"

"You're _one_ man, Will. Not a supercomputer. Not anymore," Max interrupted impatiently. "You're one man with no weapons, no money, no transportation, and knowledge of this decade limited to what you've been told by a twenty-four year old woman. I don't think you're one to be talking about limited capabilities."

Gwen, on the other hand, was quiet for nearly the entire trip, which was only a few hours but felt like ages as they passed through empty, yellowing grassland and hills. She had never been here - which was not entirely surprising, as she had hardly really been anywhere except home. It seemed so abandoned, filled with patches of abandoned farmland with no one to tend them, the occasional barn or silo littering the wide skyline. The first real landmark she was able to catch sight of was a rickety old wooden sign with faded paint that read: Welcome to Capay.

"Capay?" Will asked, his brow furrowing as he recognized the name of the town - the last he remembered of it, it was a small, simple farming town he'd never cared to visit, just about an hour out from his old home in Berkeley. "Is this far out enough?"

"Distance-wise, perhaps not," Max answered, his gaze focused forward as the pulled into the streets of a small town, lined with small buildings, stores, and parks. "But this town is a different world. I have an old cabin here I purchased, years ago."

"Why?" Gwen asked, speaking up for the first time during their entire trip. Max skipped a beat before answering simply.

"_Privacy_."

Gwen felt slightly unsettled as they drove straight through the small town completely and up into more yellowing grassy hills. The place was so quiet, so isolated - a world apart from the bustling city that Gwen had grown up, gone to school in, worked in. Pulling in front of an old cabin on the side of a small hill, Max reached out and tapped his knuckles on the window again.

"We're here. I'm sure you wanna stretch out those legs," Max said with a weak smirk. He got out of the cab of the truck and opened the gates to the back, allowing both Will and Gwen to climb out. As they picked up the few supplies that Max had brought along for them and brought them into the dusty old home, Max noticed for the first time that this Will Caster was truly _Will_ - the mild-mannered and introspective man that he had once respected, considered a colleague and a friend. It had been so many years since he'd seen _this_ Will, he felt like a stranger. It was clear that Will Caster felt similarly.

Max Waters put down an unfamiliar black duffel bag and cleared his throat. "Clothes," he said simply. "You're might be here for a while."

* * *

George Hadley enjoyed his office greatly - while the bulk of Project Generativity's facilities were housed in the sub-basements for security purposes, his office was close to the top floor with the other directors. It was an admittedly oversized suite almost completely surrounded by windows, and he had used a modest fortune to furnish is specifically to his liking. Tonight in particular was the first day he had not been harassed by journalists about the incident between Milford Duggan and Gwen Buchanan.

Sitting at his antique wooden desk with his feet propped up, Hadley pondered if he had made an error in judgment placing a young girl like Gwen Buchanan in such a high position. He had not foreseen the Chairman's daughter being _this_ much trouble when he'd selected her for promotion into one of the most lucrative positions available in his division; she had always been quiet, . George Hadley was a made man, and he prided himself on his success - success which had always come from using people. It was, after all, the only way to get ahead, and using the Chairman's daughter was beneficial in multiple ways. Not only was she gifted and blindly enthusiastic - the best type to exploit. She was a bargaining chip. The entire city, the entire _organization_ knew that as competent and as savvy as he was, Chairman Buchanan was driven first and foremost by the desire to make his daughter happy, and now, keeping his daughter happy would include _funding_ for the division. It was meant to be foolproof.

The problem was, she had proven to be more trouble than she was worth. He'd really had no choice other than to create distance between her and the organization, he reasoned. Between the Duggan fiasco, the break-in, and RIFT, the board of directors had enough to deal with.

His office suite was his safe haven, and he stayed late at night here because it was much more satisfying to be alone, with no one to bother him - which was why he was so surprised to see an unfamiliar woman bursting through his door.

She was thin with blonde hair and prominent features, probably in her mid-forties, though she appeared to have reached such an age with such grace and dignity that she could have passed for a decade younger. She shut the door behind her and easily blocked it with a chair before walking over to Hadley's desk, leaning over to face him.

"Are you with RIFT?" he asked knowingly. The woman gave a nearly imperceptible nod before bringing her face close to his, her lip briefly curling into a smirk at the glimmer of fear in the man's eyes. It was good to know that people still regarded RIFT with the proper... _reverence_ after all of these years.

"Where are you keeping Gwen Buchanan?" she said shortly, raising an eyebrow. Hadley stared at her and gulped, and she rolled her eyes before narrowing them slightly. "It's a simple question."

"We placed her on suspension," Hadley said shakily. "She's probably at home -"

"We've looked there. You expect me to believe you didn't _make_ her disappear?" the woman asked. Hadley leapt to his feet and backed away from his desk when the woman drew a gun that had been tucked into the waistband of her jeans. "Her house is empty - and we know how people like you operate. Because we _made_ you," the woman sneered. "Your organization wouldn't have come to be without the Collapse. You needed RIFT -"

"That's none of my -"

"_Where is the girl_?" the woman roared suddenly, pointing the gun directly at Hadley's head. "Admit it - she was more trouble than she was worth. She exposed Duggan. She got you all into hot water, because the assault happened in your facility, and because she's the Chairman's daughter, everyone's eyes are on you -"

"_Yes_," Hadley admitted "Yes, we suspended her because she was causing us too much trouble - but not enough that we would -"

"I don't believe you," the woman said calmly, lowering the gun slightly and giving a weak smile. "Are you hiding Buchanan, or are you hiding the man who attacked her?"

"I know _nothing_ -"

"You'll excuse me for thinking that's a bold-faced lie, sir," the woman said with a smirk. "And once I find out what's _really_ going on, I'm going to call you on it, Director Hadley. I'm going to call you on it, and you won't have… _a leg to stand on_."

The woman took aim at the man's legs and fired two shots, causing them to break and collapse underneath him. He let out a scream as the woman calmly turned towards the door. She took a few steps before looking over her shoulder at the wounded man and adding, "If you change your mind and want to give me answers - come to _our_ Headquarters. Ask for Bree."

* * *

"I know you're here," Max muttered, glancing around the old garden. The house had been burned down and left in ruin thanks to RIFT's impromptu bonfire, but a small corner of the garden remained uncharred, a small patch of green contrasted against a vast expanse of black soot. This garden had once been dear to someone dear to him, and being here was the only thing he could think of which gave him any sense of peace. "You're here somewhere, Evelyn. It's not too late -"

"Dad?"

Bryce followed his father into the garden, his arms crossed over himself - after going to pick up another round of supplies that he planned to bring out to Capay when the coast was clear, Max had told his son to wait by the car, that he only wanted a moment to survey the damage, and so the older man turned in surprise at his son's arrival.

"I - I just came to tell you, there's news on the car radio," Bryce stammered, noticing how intense his father's expression had appeared before he'd made the effort to conceal it. "RIFT went after Hadley. He's been shot."

Max inhaled in a sharp hiss, shaking his head and staring upward - it was simple enough to put two and two together. George Hadley had the most to lose from Gwen's revelation - the reputation of his division, upon which he had gotten fat and rich and lazy, was at stake. Of course he would be the first one they went after. This was only the beginning, he realized. RIFT would stop at nothing to find Gwen at this point, and even though their intention was to _protect _her, the thought provided little comfort. Everything was escalating - and Max realized that he had gotten Gwen away from the city just in time.

"Dad, was _he_ here?" Bryce asked, and Max already knew he was asking about Will - even if he didn't know the connection between Will and Gwen, there was plenty that he did know. "Why did we come here?"

"No reason," Max said, shaking his head. "I just needed to…"

He glanced over at the small green patch of the garden and felt a strange swelling of _hope_ in his chest, causing his shoulders to relax. "I just needed to see this for myself."

Bryce gaze a dissatisfied huff, shaking his head at the vague answer. "I don't understand _anything_ anymore," he admitted in exasperation. "I don't understand any of this. Why does Gwen need to hide? She's the one who was attacked, it shouldn't be like this -"

"Bryce, I know that to you, she's just _Gwen_," Max said, turning to his son knowingly. "But to the rest of the world, she'd the Chairman's daughter. And if you want to stay in her life, you need to learn to accept that."

* * *

"You two must be new in town."

Gwen had ventured down into town, despite Will's misgivings about being seen by anyone. Max had told them the town of Capay was safe, but Will wasn't quick to trust his judgment. Wandering into a small general store, Gwen found herself and Will immediately greeted by an older woman behind the register who eyed them with a wide, toothy grin.

"Just moved in," Gwen replied with a winning smile as she walked towards the shelves and picked up a feather duster and a dust pan. "We're not from around here."

"I think that's enough," Will said in a whisper as he walked over and placed a hand on Gwen's shoulder to get her attention. "I know Max said we were safe here, but you shouldn't push your luck -"

Gwen glanced at Will with eyes glinting in mild defiance before bringing the items over to the woman behind the counter. "It's really quiet out here. Peaceful," she said with the same grin. "Nothing like the city."

"Yeah, well, we like it this way," the older woman chuckled, ringing up the items while Gwen reached into her pocket for her wallet, which housed the little cash she carried. She would need to make it last, she realized. "I'll bet you do too, if you went to the trouble of coming all the way out."

"The city's much more trouble than it's worth," Will said, moving over to the counter as well, playing along - Gwen fought the urge to roll her eyes at the feeling that he was patronizing her, acting like he needed to be there to do damage control, but she supposed it was for the best. If they were going to be stuck hiding in Capay together, it was for the best that they looked out for one another. "It's - it's amazing, really. How you've all managed to not get swallowed up in the craziness of the city, even though it's so close. Have you had help from RIFT?"

At the question, the older woman's eyebrows leapt upward just as she was accepting the payment from Gwen. Her expression began as a grimace that shifted into a laugh as she shook her head. "Those _war mongerers_ know they aren't welcome in our town," she said pointedly, and Gwen couldn't restrain the visible heave in her chest as she sighed in relief. "We live like this because we _want_ to, not because we want to force it on anyone else. And - since you asked, I'm willing to bet you aren't too fond of them either."

"We've just heard things about them," Gwen replied quickly. "Bad things - things we don't want to be a part of."

"Well, then you've moved into the right town," the older woman said with a warm smile. "I'm Lorna."

"It's good to meet you, Lorna," Gwen said, her smile finally no longer forced as she tucked the cleaning supplies under her arm. She glanced at Will, looking slightly smug at the fact that, at least apparently, she had been right to trust Max about this town. "Always nice to make a new friend."


	10. Chapter 10

"It is therefore my proposition to the Board that we conduct a full and formal audit of our handling of such situations…"

The thirty-five other men gathered at the oval table in the board room - the world leaders of the Gatekeepers - glanced back and forth between one another at Chairman Buchanan's suggestion. This summit was an annual affair, and in years past, Buchanan had simply taken on the symbolic role of calling for votes and keeping the peace in discussions. He rarely presented his own propositions.

"Chairman Buchanan, don't you think that's a bit… _excessive_?" The Turkish emissary asked, leaning his forearms across the table and staring their leader down. "I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say that our hearts go out to your daughter, but it seems irresponsible to compromise the operations of our entire organization -"

"This is _not_ a personal vendetta, gentleman," Donald said smoothly, raising a hand and interrupting his colleague as gently as possible. "This is recognition of a flaw in our operations, and flaws should be _fixed._ Our system is sick -"

"You thought our system was fine until someone tried to assault your daughter."

"And that was a grievous oversight on my part. On all of our parts," Don said, his jaw and neck tightening visibly. The statement had come from the Executive Director from Sweden, and Don Buchanan made a pointed effort not to look at him for fear of becoming more angry than he should. "When we begin fostering and forgetting the behaviors of the violent and mentally disturbed for the sake of maintaining operations, re-evaluation is absolutely in order, gentlemen. The Gatekeepers were established to keep people safe. We came into being because of _one _man trying to play God. Why did we destroy that _one_ man if we planned to simply replace him with a board of thirty-six men doing the same thing?"

None of the other Executive Directors around the table could immediately come up with a reply - since its founding, none of the members of the Gatekeepers had called for questioning of the organization, least of all their Chairman. The Director from England cleared his throat and leaned slightly onto the table.

"If you think so poorly of us, Chairman," he said smoothly. "Perhaps the first thing that requires re-evaluation is your Chairmanship of the Gatekeepers at all."

The two men crossed gazes across the table while no one else dared to speak, and the tension was so electric that it seemed to physically heat the entire boardroom.

"Not _yet,_" Donald Buchanan said, his voice smooth and completely effective in concealing the sneer that threatened so intently to manifest itself. "I still have work to do."

* * *

"Turn off that light, I can't tell if this bulb is still working -"

"_Will_!"

Gwen rolled her eyes in exasperation as she walked into the living room of the cabin, which Will Caster had claimed as his room while the actual bedroom belonged to Gwen. She had lit up one of the solar powered lamps Max had provided them with, and Will immediately snapped his head up from what he was working on - he had found a closet of Max's old things, including old computer parts and an ill-fitting headlamp. He had been attempting to create _something_ functioning - a Frankenstein's Monster of a computer - but only had a few nearly burnt-out small bulbs to use to test the circuits that could barely be seen in the dark.

"If anyone comes up here and sees you tinkering around like that, we're gonna wear out our welcome really fast," Gwen said, reaching over and opening the blinds. "Just because they're not RIFT doesn't mean they're not… _technophobes_."

"I need to do _something_," Will said matter-of-factly, removing the headlamp and dropping it into the couch he had slept on. He began pacing across the floor, shaking his head and muttering to himself before pausing and looking up at Gwen. "Do you expect me to waste a second chance at life and _not_ continue my work?"

"I don't have any _expectations_ of you, Will! I didn't even ask you to be here!" Gwen said, throwing her hands out wide. "I didn't ask for any of this! All I'm asking of you now is to put effort into us not getting caught!"

Will frowned and turned away, still shaking his head so that his dark hair fell slightly into his face, and Gwen attempted to regain a sense of center - she took a deep breath and walked across the room to open the rest of the blinds in the living room. "You're overloaded right now. You're still trying to process all of this emotion that you're not used to feeling anymore -"

"I realize that the fact that I existed only in digital form for a couple of decades is a convenient talking point, but I don't think you're entitled to blame it for everything," he said coolly. "You're just as overloaded as I am, and you don't have that excuse."

Gwen opened her mouth to reply, and again found that she was out of points to make. She pursed her lips and inhaled through her nostrils, her eyes narrowing as she glared at the man in front of her. "I'm getting tired of the canned camping food Max left us. I'm going into town for something that wasn't packed by a machine," she said stiffly, walking over to the kitchen area and picking up the jacket she had slung onto the counter, slipping it on over her plaid shirt.

It did some good to be out in fresh air, as Gwen was considerably calmer when she finished her walk down the large hill into the main street of the town at its base. She shuffled over the dusty streets back to the general store, where Lorna was working the register as usual. Gwen allotted the older woman a friendly wave before noticing a large crate of apples displayed right by the entrance.

Fresh food would be a _blessing_ right now, she said, looking at the fruits with an uncontrollable grin. Like clockwork, her stomach gave a rumble that Lorna managed to hear, as she was the only other person in the store at the time. She looked up at Gwen over the rims of her glasses and chuckled gently.

"How much for a pound of these?" Gwen asked with a bashful laugh, nodding towards the apples.

"For you? Dollar twenty-five, just like it is for everyone else," Lorna laughed. Gwen smirked back and started picking out a few apples. Lorna gave a small frown when she noticed that the younger woman had only picked out two of them to bring up to the counter, and even then, she was fumbling through her wallet trying to find money. The apples were tiny things, grown on a family farm in town - they hardly could have been more than half a pound each.

"Listen, honey," Lorna continued, ringing up the two apples. "I don't mean to pry, but are you in some kind of trouble?"

Gwen gulped, unable to help herself. She realized that the lack of cash was an inescapable tell - vacationers didn't show up broke. She managed to look up and shrug nonchalantly. "Just a little hard up," she answered. "This economy, right?"

"Preaching to the choir, honey. Every passing day costs a little more and pays a little less," Lorna laughed, reaching around and grabbing a couple cobs of corn and a loaf of bread, still steaming, which she pushed across the counter to Gwen. "Take these too. You've got a pretty face, but you're skinny as a rail. That man you were here with doesn't look like he's eaten much either. Your… _friend_?"

"Oh. Will," Gwen nodded, still caught by surprise by the older woman's kindness. "I guess you could call him my friend, yeah."

"You _guess I could call him your friend_," Lorna chuckled impishly, and Gwen gave a slight groan at the realization that Lorna had interpreted the statement far differently than she had meant it. "Well, I just assumed you two were close. The way he looks at you, like thankful for something -"

"Oh, that!" With a chuckle of relief, Gwen felt her shoulders relax. "I just did him a really big favor. He's… the reason we're out here," she supplied vaguely. Lorna clucked her tongue again, and Gwen felt a strange pang of sadness. Her mother used to do that, she recalled. Her mother used to always cluck her tongue and chide her for the smallest things, and maybe if she'd had her mother chiding her this whole time, Gwen thought, she might have drawn the line before going so far with her research. But - Will actually looked at her with _gratitude_ when she wasn't looking? It seemed preposterous to Gwen. Will Caster didn't genuinely give a damn about her, she had concluded long ago.

"Hmm," Lorna replied, clearly unsatisfied with the response, but not about to dwell on it with someone who clearly had no level of comfort whatsoever in explaining her situation.

"Listen, _thank you_, Lorna," Gwen said genuinely, looking down at the food she was coming away with. "You have no idea how much it means to me that someone's willing to -"

"Anytime, Miss Buchanan. Don't you worry," Lorna said, reaching out and patting Gwen's hand gently. Gwen smiled in return, until she realized that Lorna had used her last name even though she'd never been told what is was. With a slight gasp, Gwen began looking over her shoulders in a panic until Lorna raised her hands and waved dismissively. "I know who you are because you're all over the papers - they come a day late, but we still get 'em," Lorna explained, walking around the counter and picking a newspaper up off of the wire rack near the door. She folded it gently and held it out to Gwen, who realized that today in particular, her father was on the front page.

"I - Lorna, I don't -"

"You don't want RIFT to find you here. I know," Lorna nodded. "I figured as much the day I met you and your friend."

It relieved some of the burden that, at the very least, Lorna didn't know anything about Will Caster. Gwen looked away in mild shame, shaking her head.

"Don't you worry, child," Lorna said, clapping a hand on Gwen's shoulder. "You think the people in this town don't know a thing or two about just wanting to live in peace? We'll look out for you."

"And Will?" Gwen asked before she could help herself, immediately realizing that she wasn't doing herself any favors; she was just giving Lorna more reasons to suspect that Will - a handsome thirty-year-old man as far as Lorna knew - was something in Gwen's life that he certainly was not. "They're going to hurt him if they find him. We - worked together," she said.

"You're a scientist. I know," Lorna nodded. "And I don't know a lick about those kinds of things - I just know that the reason RIFT comes after you is if you find something you weren't supposed to. And I think that's a bull turd if I ever saw one - I may not like your… machines and your computers as what have you, but there's one thing I do believe. I believe that nothing would be put on this Earth if we weren't meant to find it."

The idea that everything found was meant to be found gave Gwen a sense of comfort that she hadn't in days, and Lorna saw the beginnings of moisture starting to gather in the younger woman's eyes. Lorna gave her shoulder another reassuring squeeze. "Tell you what," Lorna began, interrupting before Gwen truly began crying - she knew the poor girl would be mortified if she broke down in public that way. "I know you're tight on cash right now. How about you pull a few shifts for me in this store once in a while? All this standing and lifting and whatnot is no good - joints aren't what they used to be. I could sure use the help."

"Are you serious?" Gwen said, her face lighting up slightly from the near-tearful expression of moments earlier. "Lorna, that would be amazing. I promise, I'll work hard - I'll -"

"You'll keep yourself from going crazy, being stuck out in the hills with that man," Lorna chuckled, shaking her head. "Now you take that bread back home and get something warm in your stomach."

"Yes, Ma'am," Gwen laughed, gathering the food on the counter up into her arms and taking a few backwards steps towards the door. "Bright and early tomorrow, Lorna. Promise!"

Gwen made her way up the dry, yellow hillside feeling surprisingly light after her conversation with Lorna - it was nice, she decided, having someone else who at least seemed to be on their side. When she arrived back at the cabin, however, she noticed from outside that the blinds were shut again, and when she opened the door, she found the living room in disarray. Will had knocked over and kicked everything he had been working on earlier in the morning so that it lay scattered in pieces, and he was now sitting on the sofa with his head buried in his hands.

"What happened in here?" Gwen said in a constricted voice as she shut the door behind her, staying close to the wall and not coming any closer. She slowly inched around the edge of the wall and placed the food she had picked up from the store onto the kitchen counter. "Will, it's a disaster area -"

"There's no point," Will snapped harshly, making a sharp gesture at the broken pieces he had left strewn over the ground. "There's nothing I can do. Nothing to done. Evelyn -"

Gwen exhaled sharply and clasped her fingers behind her neck, looking upwards and away from Will. It made sense now why he was so bent on building a computer - any computer. He was trying to find a way to reach his wife. "Evelyn is _gone, _Will - and even if she wasn't, you couldn't bring her back from here," Gwen explained carefully, starting to move around the room and pick up the pieces herself. "Until a matter of weeks ago, you were dead too. We're in big trouble right now, why are you doing this?"

"Because I'm _alone_!" Will said, standing up suddenly and throwing his arms out wide, raising his voice for the first time. Gwen flinched and immediately stood straight, eyeing him questioningly as the objects in her arms fell to the ground with a clatter. He groaned and shook his head regretfully. "I shouldn't be here if she isn't, after everything she sacrificed to keep us together. It's like I woke up one morning and everything I know is gone. I feel like a ghost here…"

His voice trailed off briefly, and he looked away - Gwen did as well. There was a brief silence, and then in a choke voice, as though it escaped his lips with him intending it too, he said, "You brought me here, and I shouldn't be."

"Well, I'm _sorry_!" Gwen snapped vehemently at his nerve, blaming her for any of this. "If I could put you back where you came from, I would." She narrowed her eyes for a moment and glared at Will before starting to stride off towards the bedroom. However, he caught her by her forearm as she passed him and stopped her.

"Gwen, I didn't mean that," he said, and it was evident in his voice that admitting it was a blow to his pride. "You're all I've got. You're… you're all I've…"

Confused at his hesitation, Gwen looked up and saw that Will was looking at her - really _looking_ at her - in a way that Gwen had only seen one person look at her. It dawned on her what he was thinking.

"No. _Nonono,_" Gwen laughed uncomfortably, pulling her arm out of his grasp. "You're overloaded right now. You're cooped up in here and you see no one but me, and it's making you think things that you shouldn't be thinking," she rambled. "You're overwhelmed by all of this human emotion that you're not used to, and it just happens to be directed towards me -"

"You're doing it again," Will pointed out. "Everything boils down to _Will Caster used to exist only in a computer_ -"

"Because that's what this _is_," Gwen insisted.

Will shook his head and crossed his arms over himself, a gesture which Gwen mirrored. "Is it so outlandish that I might actually feel something real? Gwen, you are literally the _only_ person I have now -"

"That's not _real_! That's desperation, it's loneliness - that's not a reason!" Gwen said, her forehead wrinkling in disdain for the entire direction the conversation had taken. She took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself before looking up and realizing Will had gone silent; his face was creased with what looked like humiliation at the fact that Gwen was _right_. She looked at him with careful scrutiny and realized the expression of shame on his face. "Listen," she sighed, going back and finishing the cleanup of the items on the floor. "You can do something to help me. If I can learn more about what I did for you, who knows?"

Will chuckled weakly at Gwen's attempts to give him a little bit of hope - hope that he wasn't alone after all. "Deal," he nodded. It was almost relieving to be past the worst, to have hit rock bottom in front of Gwen now, because at least now, she would fully be able to accept that he was human. But he realized that she had been right about one thing she had said to him days ago - it was natural not to want to be alone.


End file.
